Wonders Never Cease
by HoplessAndWandering
Summary: "It's like playing a game," Harry said. "A judging game. You sit and listen and at the end of the day you'll decide whether Severus Snape deserves to die or not." *Fic Submission for the first annual Tri-Writing Tournament. (Round Three)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N; Very mildly inspired by 'The Imitation Game'. Go watch it, it's a masterpiece. A little early for this round, but this is going to be a multi-chaptered fic, so I think I'm good!**

**Prompts used in this chapter;**  
**_none**

**Warnings; mild swearing, anger issues, explicit depiction of violence, and major character death. (Not Snape or Harry)**

**Enjoy~**

* * *

Chapter one: The judging Game

The interrogation room itself was actually not designed for interrogation.

It was more of an office, with oak furniture, a bookcase leaned against the wall and dark green drapes that had been chosen with good tastes. The table was cleared, the bookcase had been emptied, but the Persian rug under his feet and the unmistakable scent of leather and richness told Harry exactly what he needed to know.

His arrival wasn't expected, and this rushed self-made interrogation cell was a last-minute adjustment minutes before they brought him in.  
There was a tin jar, filled with hard candy just out of Harry's reach, next to a tidy line of quills and an inkwell. The tips were sharp, Harry could absolutely use that to deliver some damage to the fool who had forgotten to bind his hands or rather…did not think him intimidating enough to be restrained.

'Fools,' that's what Dad would have said. 'Bumbling fools, the lot of them,'

"I know Dad," Harry muttered, slumping back in his chair, fiddling with a small folded parchment in his hands. He spun it with two fingers, traced the folded lines and refolded them, over and over in the eerie silence of the room.

His patience was wearing thin, but Dad had taught him better than that. He couldn't afford even the smallest amount of frustration. The slightest distraction could easily obliterate this place into tiny chips, killing hundreds if not more with the sheer force.

'Focus entirely on the paper Harry,' his dad had told him, the first time they sat together and made origami out of disposable parchments. Harry was seven. 'The complicated patterns, the order it needs to be folded into, it needs concentration. And concentration doesn't leave any room for silly things like irritation and annoyance.'

Harry unfolded his parchment and started again.

The door opened and closed with a sharp metallic click, and then locked just as Harry's file was thrown on the table. It was quite a leafy one, not much to it, from the looks of it. Harry himself suspected that the folder wouldn't contain more than four or five parchments. Yet, as the doors locked behind the larger wizard, Harry felt as if his deepest and darkest secrets were in there.

Shacklebolt stood for a beat, staring at Harry with narrowed eyes as if he was expecting the boy to start attacking him.

Harry stared back at him.

"So?"

Shacklebolt jostled forward and took a seat across from Harry. His expression carefully blank, and devoid of any and all emotions. The man leaned back in his seat.

"We have a deal, Mr. Potter." His voice was deep.

The sixteen-year-old nodded with closed eyes and a small frown, pressing his lips together as the small paper crumpled in his hands. They were silent for almost a full minute, before Harry opened his eyes, following the dark grains that ran along the fine waxed oak.

"Are you paying attention?"

The man nodded, and Harry's shoulders sagged, his body hitting the back of his chair. "That's good," he said faintly, nodding to himself. "This means the whole world to me, Shacklebolt." His throat tightened as he swallowed. "If you're not paying attention, you will miss things."

People always did that. They always missed the bigger picture by obsessing over the smaller, less important details. It infuriated Dad to no end.  
"I'm recording us as we speak Mr. Potter," Shacklebolt said it as an assurance, but it had the opposite effect.

"Then you're not really paying attention." Harry snapped. "Look at me in the eyes." Shacklebolt did so, his eyes unblinking and his expression open. There was a hint of irritation hidden behind that carefully blank structure. Harry was like an itch under his skin. "If you let your thoughts wander to unnecessary details then you're putting your trust into a recording charm and you will miss things. The most important things."

"And what are those?"

"I will only say it once, from beginning to the end, where we are now. I will not pause, because I cannot afford to, and you will not interrupt me, because I'm not an idiot. You have to trust me on this."

"Why should I trust a boy raised by the most notorious man known in the wizarding world? Mr. Potter, I'm afraid you're under the impression that you hold some sort of power over me, let me reassure you that-"

"It is exactly as you think. Don't think for a second that just because you're sitting where you are and I'm sitting where I am, that you are in control. That's not true, I am the one who's in control here, and you won't like it when I lose that control."

"You need us more than we need you."

He had a point. Harry needed the ministry people way more than they needed him. Dad's life depended on whether these people would listen to him, and actually believe him. Harry didn't care what they wanted from Harry himself as long as he got to save his dad first.

"He wasn't a notorious monster you know." He said after a short pause. "You've made him sound like a children's ghost story, and he would have hated that."

"Let me guess," the Auror drawled sardonically. "Because you think he isn't that monster at all?"

Harry smiled, perhaps for the first time in a long time. He huffed a laugh that was more an exhale of relief. "Oh no," he waved a hand.

"He would have complained that he's not scary enough. He has an ego to polish after all." His smile faded to a faint line. "Being the villain in a story that sounds like something straight out of the Tales of Beedle the Bard…well…he's gonna be pissed."

Shacklebolt only hummed in response, tapping his quill against the parchment as the silence brought back the tension once again.

"Now Harry-"

"Oh, you cannot call me that. Only he can call me by my name," Harry stared down at the table. "I was fine with 'Mr. Potter'." Harry didn't concurrently act out his words with the obvious air quotes, but he was sure Shacklebolt was smart enough to get it.

And he must have because the Auror raised his eyebrows at the teen and gave him a long look. "Which is your name." Shacklebolt didn't phrase the words like a question and Harry didn't treat it like one.

"Oh sure."

With an agitated huff, the Auror flipped his file open with unhidden aggression and skimmed through the content. "Mr. Potter, the healers have passed you for your physicals," he said, business-like. "And the mind healers seem to deem you sane enough for this interrogation, now I want to start with-."

"No, you didn't get it." Harry took a deep breath, folding the corners of his parchment into tiny triangles.

'Don't you start losing your temper now Harry,' his dad had said to him a few times, the first time being when he was six and accidentally broke his own toy broom. 'If you give in to that anger, then you're letting it win. There's a little monster inside all of us, and it loves angry little six-year-olds,' his hand brushed Harry's hair out of his eyes. 'You won't ever let the little monster win, will you?'

No, Dad. Harry exhaled. I won't let these dimwitted scumbags kill you off for no reason.

Patience was the key.

"I'm the only one who speaks, Mr. Shacklebolt." He said, as calmly as he could manage. After all, that was the deal they had in the first place. There would be no questions. Harry was there to confess. And a confession didn't need the humiliation that came with questions.

"It's like playing a game." Harry continued. "A judging game. You sit and listen and at the end of the day you'll decide whether Severus Snape deserves to die or not."

"Well then, go on." Shacklebolt squared his shoulders then gestured at him to begin. "Start with the first memory you have of Severus Snape."

"I'm going further back." The Auror looked confused. "The night the Potters died. You all think you have that night figured out, don't you? A classic case of child abduction, probably peppered with some gory details like thoughts of revenge and torment as motivation in his head. Well, you're wrong."

***

Severus Snape was drenched in blood, standing in the middle of a ruin that was once someone's home. If he, himself, hadn't visited this house before it had been rendered to this state, he would have never believed that people lived in anything that wasn't part of the rubble.

With his face paled, his eyes uncharacteristically wide, Severus Snape stared at the bloodied fingers encircling his forearm in a death grip, his chest tightening as large hazel eyes stared back at him in terror.

"Please." The messy-haired man croaked as if each letter pained him to the point of passing out, his chapped lips were moist with blackish blood. His free hand was pressed against his gushing side, where blood flowed out in rushing rivulets. So much blood and Severus was already drenched in it.  
He looked so young, Sev was agonizingly aware of that. They were both so young. They were just twenty-one. Basically children.

"Potter," Severus couldn't believe the man was still alive. The boy-the i man /i who had bullied him his whole life, tormented him, ridiculed him and stole the girl he loved…the girl who was undoubtedly dead upstairs in the nursery.

There were muffled cries, coming from above, from the nursery, and James Potter seemed more devastated over the cries than his own grave condition. "Please," he repeated, his eyes screwed shut in immense pain. And Severus pitied him so much in that instant.

There was no coming back from that. James Potter was going to die.

The infant's cries increased. "Potter,"

Severus wanted to wrench his arm away from the dying man. Leave him to bleed out, and die alone as Severus properly mourned Lily, saw her for the last time, held her in his arms for one last time, before it all ended.

But he couldn't. Potter was crying, and the image was so odd, so perplexing that Severus couldn't do anything but stare. It wasn't pathetic and it wasn't cowardly or even from the pain. Potter cried in sync with his child. It was heartbreaking to watch.

"Save-." Potter heaved, his face red and contorted. "My baby."

Severus unwittingly knelt next to Potter, his own hands shaking. Potions, he must have a few in his robes, somewhere, he should give one to Potter. He numbly started reaching for his pockets but James' hand tightened, painfully squeezing his wrist, gritting his bones against each other.

"Harry-." Potter's head seemed too heavy to be supported by his neck. It lolled against Severus's bloodied torso for a moment before sliding to the ground, on the debris. "Save him."

Sev licked his lips, nervously. If only he could give Potter a pain-relieving potion, or something to knock him out long enough that he would pass in his sleep. He couldn't bear it. He thought that he would rejoice in seeing the great insolent James potter weeping and bleeding to death while he watched and smirked in glee. But he couldn't. Severus wanted to cry with him because they both knew there was no relief from what had struck Potter. The curse had practically sliced the twenty-one-year-old man to shreds, and it was a wonder that he was still alive. Still breathing, and talking. Asking Severus to save his baby.

Dumbledore would be here soon, he would tend to the baby. Severus, he needed to get to Lily. One last time. He needed to grieve for the woman he loved. His best friend, and Potter, as always, was ruining this for him.

That was too cruel, he thought in shame, even for Severus.

"Potter let me give you something," he hated how weak he sounded and how desperate, even to his own ears. He couldn't believe the amount of blood that was still gushing out of Potter, tainting everything in its wake.

"No," Potter whimpered, gritting his teeth. "My son. Harry."

"He's crying," Severus said, quite dumbly. He didn't know what Potter wanted from him. The man seemed almost delirious in his urgency. He was incoherent. Against Potter's vehement pulling-with surprising strength- Severus managed to reach a hand in his robes and blindly fumble for a vial.

"Potter stop squirming." He snapped but Potter wasn't listening. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, glazed with pain and anguish, staring directly at the nursery through the roof it seemed. As if he could distinguish his son and dead wife through the plaster.

"Harry,"

"Here Potter," Severus had to force the bitter liquid down Potter's throat, and most of it dribbled down the man's chin, Severus doubted he had even swallowed a drop, but James's eyes suddenly darted to him with more awareness.

"Take him," he said. "Take Harry. You owe me." Every word seemed to take a toll on him, and Severus had the strongest urge to press his hands against his ears to block out the sound of blood gurgling in the man's throat as he spoke, and the distressed wheezing that wrecked his chest with each pant.

"Potter quit rambling," Severus snapped, irritated and disturbed. "Dumbledore-"

"No!" Potter recoiled as if struck. Baby Harry wailed louder and Potter's hold tightened more. His other hand slipped from his side and Severus jumped, urgently pressing his own hand to Potter's stomach to slow the bleeding.

"Alright! Alright!" he snapped. "Not Dumbledore then. Pettigrew will be here soon for the baby and the wolf too."

He couldn't understand what the big deal was, Potter might have lost Sirius Black to the Dark Lord, but he still had Lupin and Pettigrew at his beck and call, not to mention Dumbledore and his Order. Surely, they would come for the boy and sort things out.

James Potter, however, didn't seem to think the same. The man shook his head, frantically, his eyes still shut. His glasses were nowhere to be seen. Did he even know that he was holding onto Severus Snape of all people? Or was he so gone from the pain and grief, that he couldn't even recognize Severus's voice?

"No, no, no."

"Potter." Severus really needed to stop Potter's babbling.

"Take him, please. Run away, no one," Potter panted. "-can find him. Love him. Hide him. No one can,"

"No one can have my baby."

This was James Potter. The same man who once hung Severus upside down and pulled off his pants. The same man, who cursed his hair to drip oil for days, and charmed all of his clothes red, the one who put nasty things in his food, and made his life a living hell. All that name-calling, slurs-on both sides- because he gave as much as he got…and then him at sixteen, saving Severus from a werewolf.

This same man, who was now begging Severus with his eyes, desperate and suffering, worried to death for his infant son. His eyes wide with unsheathed love and absolute terror, even though he was weak, and dying in the rubble that he once called home.

"You're delirious with pain," Severus muttered, his eyes cast down. The look in potter's eyes was driving him insane. How could an arrogant, immature man-child, change so much in a span of three years?

"You have to." Potter's voice was almost inaudible, and Severus could barely hear the man. He tried pulling his hand away from Potter once more. He could help that twit if only he could give him something, or reach his wand to put him out of his misery.

"Just let me give you something, I have a few vials with me there should be-"

"Listen to me!" Potter exclaimed. Severus stopped.

"Tell him I love him alright?" James' eyes traveled back to the roof. "I love him so much, tell him that."

Snape loudly exhaled, cursing under his breath. "Potter I'm not taking your son."

"Lily's baby." James corrected with a weak grin. "You'll love him," he vowed, patting Severus' hand. "Promise me." Severus nodded, not in agreement, but out of obligation. James Potter still didn't look convinced. "He's in danger." He repeated, with herculean effort. "Hide him, please. Save him."

"I will," he said and felt guilty for not meaning it. "Calm down. You're going to be-"

"Dead." The other man interrupted with a grin, looking impossibly smug, almost sheepish.

Severus winced and Potter's smile faded into a severe grimace.

"I'm sorry," James said as his eyelids started drooping. Severus stared down at him, feeling the weight of his apology. It wasn't a simple one. It carried years and years of burden with it, years of bullying and misery and heartbreak, and here Potter was, apologizing for everything on his deathbed.

"Me too," Severus said because he didn't know what else to say in response.

Potter's grasp finally loosened. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two; Feather Party

"What would you do?" Harry asked, but the question wasn't necessarily pointed at Shacklebolt.

He did wonder about this question a lot. Sometimes, when his dad had to miss potion gatherings, or something of the sort because he couldn't fake an identity. Or when the school called him for the umpteenth time in a week and he had to come and get Harry, or the times he stared down at his new potions journal with an unreadable look in his eyes that Harry swore was longing.

Dad, for all his poise and grace, and stoicism did look sad more often than not- when he thought Harry wasn't paying attention. He hid it well, too well. Behind origami papers, or new exciting foods, or a new potion that he had invented, but Harry knew it, could see right through it.

It showed the most when they had to leave their home; pick up their whole lives and move to a new town and start from scratch, because someone might have seen something, or heard something, or thought something, and it was always Harry's fault, but Dad never said that.

When he was ten, they had to leave their home on Boxing Day. How depressing was that?

'It's never your fault,' Dad had said, in the car as they were pretending to move away. They always drove the charmed car for a reasonable distance, ditched it somewhere and then Dad apparated them to the new location.

'You cannot stop things from happening, sometimes things happen for a reason.' Harry was silent, his eyes red-rimmed and his arms crossed against his chest. He was ten. He didn't understand logic and inevitability. They were running from their house on i Boxing Day/i for Merlin's sake.

'I'm sorry,' he truly was sorry for cheating in that stupid snowball fight that the neighborhood kids had started. He didn't get to mingle with them much, and it was just so much fun that he forgot that he couldn't use his magic to assist him against four other children.

No one saw, Harry personally thought that no one caught him doing it except for Dad, but if Dad had then it meant that someone else had too. Because people couldn't be trusted. One couldn't simply 'assume' things about people.

Dad didn't tell him off for using his stupid magic, he didn't shout, he didn't look disappointed. He just turned his back to Harry and walked into the house to start packing. They left that afternoon.

'It was my fault, Harry, not yours,' his father looked straight ahead, his eyes glued to the snowy road ahead. 'I should have known better.'

Harry wondered, a lot, about how much his dad had sacrificed in order to keep him safe, the things he had missed, in order to raise a child that wasn't even his, to begin with. Practically his whole life was thrown away, the things he could have seen or had; the places he could have gone to and the awards and jobs his brilliance in potions could have granted him.

"Stranded after a war where you belong to neither side, with no jobs, and no way to access your money and no one to trust, with a baby, dumped on you, what would you do?"

Shacklebolt didn't answer but looked uncomfortable nonetheless. The large man shifted in his seat, his chair creaking under his weight.  
"He had no idea what he was doing. He didn't have the first notion about babies. He didn't how to feed me, how to hold me, or what to do when I cried. He couldn't go to Gringotts for the money he had left in his vaults, and his best friend was dead."

"You all think it's so easy to give up your whole life in a span of one night."

He didn't get to say goodbye to Lily.

In fact, Severus didn't even get to really examine his best friend's unmoving body more than four seconds before Baby Potter's inconsolable cries demanded his attention and jostled him into action. He didn't have time to mourn. He needed to take care of the baby first.

Severus took out his wand and surveyed the ruined nursery with pursed lips, his eyes darted away from the caved-in roof and the rubble, to the shelf and Harry's wardrobe.

"Accio-." Severus paused for a moment to think. "Harry's bag."

The wardrobe slammed open and a large bag zoomed into Severus's grasp. It was quite heavy for its size and dotted with small brooms lazily flying all over the bag. Lily must have prepared it in advance. Severus realized that he knew less about babies than he probably should have, as he examined the diaper bag with great wariness and then glance back at the whimpering baby.

Harry saw him stare and opened his mouth to cry for his attention once again, his chubby hands gripping the bars of his crib and pulling with force. Severus quickly slung the heavy bag on his left shoulder and strode to the crib.

"Stop crying now Potter," it couldn't be good for him, crying that much. The baby's face was already flushed and strained, his eyes glassy. They looked so similar to Lily's that if Severus weren't in such a hurry, he would have gaped at the uncanny resemblance.

He tried his best to ignore Lily's body and went over the best ways to pick up the baby without hurting him. He knew nothing about them, other than the fact that they were unimaginably fragile and breakable.

"You're all soft flesh and no bones," Severus muttered, hesitantly reaching into the crib with blood-soaked hands that were already getting dried. "You have to cooperate with me here, infant." His hands hovered in the air, and Severus groaned. He had no idea how to do this.

Harry sniffled, looking away from Severus to his mother for a moment before his eyes shifted back to the strange man. Severus watched as the baby's chin dangerously wobbled, and he burst into a new bout of tears.

"To hell with it," Severus said and plucked the baby off in one swift move, startling both himself and baby Potter into shocked silence. Harry stared at him with an open mouth, and Severus stared right back, holding him away from his body as if the child were about to explode.

Harry made a sound in his throat and gripped Severus' sleeves to steady himself.

"Alright, you didn't break." That was good news, considering the circumstances. Now he just had to carry the baby with himself out of the wreckage and apparate with him at the very least.

Then he'd figure out what he needed to do with the baby.

There was no way he was keeping him. No way in hell that he would go into hiding, raise a BABY, by himself, for merlin knew how long, over something that his childhood bully had claimed on his deathbed, most likely when he was delirious with pain and just talking nonsense. Severus nodded to himself, and slowly brought the baby closer to his chest. That seemed the most natural pose.

Just at that moment, Harry had seemed to realize that this blood-soaked stranger was i not /i his Mommy or Daddy, and he hated the way he was being held. The baby started squirming immediately, shedding crocodile tears and whining, his little hands pushing at Severus.

"No, no," he told the baby and tightened his hold. "Potter, don't be stubborn, trust me when I say that neither of us wants this."

He stepped over Lily's body with a longing glance, and then rushed out of the nursery. He was running out of time. Severus needed to apparate back to his house, get away from all of this, to actually think about his next move, and then most likely call in Dumbledore.

Obviously, he wasn't going to keep the baby.

Potter craned his neck to reach for his mother back in the nursery, starting an anew string of "Mommy" in heartbreaking whimpers, making Severus feel even worse, as he shifted the boy away and pressed his face into his chest as they were passing over James Potter's mutilated body. The child was already in hysterics, he didn't need to see that.

Severus wasn't certain how well-adjusted Potter's son was to magical transportation, but he couldn't tell the difference anyway, Potter was crying, either way, so Severus made it quick and painless, just as he had done earlier.

The baby wasn't shocked speechless this time around, but his crying dramatically reduced as he noticed the surrounding change. Severus slowly sighed and adjusted baby Potter on his hip.

"That's nicer, isn't it?" he said, cringing at himself. "No smoke or rubble. Enjoy the view Potter."

Baby Potter grunted, looking at the trees surrounding them with narrowed eyes. Severus guessed that the baby couldn't quite distinguish the trees because of the dark. Still, Harry scrutinized the vague shapes, as he cried, only half-heartedly as Severus walked the path to his porch.

One might think it idiotic of him to return home after essentially kidnapping a baby, but Severus wasn't daft. There was no way, that they would know it was him right away. He had at least a week alone in the manor by himself until anyone came sniffing around for him.

"How are you still crying?" he asked the baby, as they stood before the doors. By the time they were inside, and Severus' shoulders relaxed he was getting increasingly worried and impressed by Harry's lung capacities.

Tersely, he found his way to the kitchen with the lights dimmed, and carefully drew out his wand as he juggled Potter with his other arm. The baby needed to be sorted out first before Severus could let his shields down and start freaking out.

iThe Potters were dead. They were murdered, in their own home, betrayed by their best friend, and now Severus was drenched in their blood, with their baby in his arms. /i

Yes, he was most certainly repressing these bits of information until he deemed it safe enough to give in to delayed shock.

"We need to clean you up a bit," he said, shifting a whimpering Harry in his arms. Severus' eyes darted around the kitchen and finally settled on the kitchen table. The chairs were too dangerous for Harry.

The baby's face was tracked with tears and blood, and for all he knew, the constant crying could be out of pain. Somewhere was bleeding, by the looks of it, but the infant's face was too stained for Severus to notice the lightning bolt-shaped scar immediately.

He halted as his eyes finally fell on the inflamed, bleeding scar. A lightning bolt, the exact wand movement of the killing curse. Dear Merlin and Circe, Severus thickly swallowed the bile forming in his throat, did the dark lord try to kill this baby and failed?

He must have failed, or else baby Potter wouldn't be alive.

"Momma, Dada," Potter cried their names in a constant stream as he looked around the unfamiliar surroundings and then occasionally craned his neck to glance at a blood-soaked Severus. He was clearly asking him about the whereabouts of his parents with his tear-glazed eyes.

Severus hid his guilt, and carefully set Harry on the table, keeping a steadying hand on the baby's back.

"They're not here now Harry,"

Potter seemed too tired to sob louder, but he seemed to have understood Severus's words and their meaning. The baby sagged against his hand, looking absolutely miserable.

Severus took the chance and ran his wand over the baby with a muttered diagnostic charm, his brows furrowing as he realized that the baby's elbow was most likely injured in addition to the curse scar on his forehead.

Some rubble or a bit of plaster must have fallen on Harry, or the baby had hit it somewhere in his hysterics.

Severus leaned away, and cast another steadying charm on the baby, so he wouldn't fall over. He went over to fill up a bowl of warm water and dig around for some rags that he could use to clean up the baby. He could have done it all with a few spells, but Severus needed the stimulation.

He also needed to get away from Potter for at least a few minutes, even though they were still in the same room, and Potter was still crying.

He couldn't do this, Severus realized. He couldn't keep and raise a baby. He was a death eater, a spy in disguise, he was loathed by both sides, and precisely because of that reason, the wizarding world wouldn't appreciate a man like him taking care of their wonder boy.

Some part of him still couldn't believe that the inconsolable whimpering child had defeated the dark lord, and survived a killing curse. It was surreal, and Severus had to stifle the strong urge to start giggling. He just feared that if he started, he would never stop.

'He's in danger.' James had told him that, minutes before dying. Severus understood that. He understood what the wrath of vengeful death eaters could do to a grown man, much less a child. They would all be scramming into the shadows like rodents now that their master was gone, but a selected few would hang around for revenge.

Potter was right, but he was also wrong too.

If he had wanted protection for his son, then Severus was the wrong person to ask. Dumbledore was the most powerful man known to be alive, he was the leader surging the light side into action and resistance if there was one person in this world who could protect baby Potter it was that old man, not a Death eater spy who used to practice dark arts.

Severus placed the sloshing bowl of water down on the counter with too much force, startling Potter into silence again as the bowl clanked rather loudly as a result. Severus ignored the baby and knelt to look around in his cupboards.

Even if Potter was stung by Black's betrayal, and he couldn't find it in him to trust his other friends, such as Lupin and the rat, it wouldn't explain why he would protest that strongly against the idea of Dumbledore tending to the child.

Besides, Severus thought as he closed the cupboards and stood with a sigh, it wasn't as if he could keep the baby secret from Albus Dumbledore for long. The old man would find him in less than a week, question him, probe around in his head for answers, and then snatch the boy anyway before sending Severus on his way with a lemon sherbet and a pat on the head.

Severus wouldn't mind walking away.

This war had taken too much out of him already, and he wasn't willing to give any more. He wasn't even sure if he was capable of giving any more than he already had. He wanted everything to be over, and it seemed that his wish was finally about to come true. Then trust James bloody Potter to provoke his life debt on Severus and dump a baby in his arms.

That cannot be right. Severus ground his teeth. His life debt was paid the moment he agreed to spy for Dumbledore, even if Potter had no idea, Severus' decision was what saved James's ass the exact night he gave his first report to a blank-faced Albus and urged him to send a backup to save those bloody mindless Gryffindors. His slate was clean. But what if Albus hadn't told Potter about that night? Even more so, what if it didn't count, because Severus wasn't the one who i actually /i saved the man from certain death?

If Potter knew about that night, then he wouldn't have cited any life debts. That was unless, he knew all about it, but wanted to put Severus in an impossible situation.

How do you refuse a dying man?

Sit back, and watch Potter, Severus thought with a sneer.

He thought that he was already decided, as he grabbed a towel and headed back to an eerily silent Potter. He would clean the baby up, heal what he could, and then fire call Albus Dumbledore.

James Potter's last words or not, Severus wasn't about to abandon every shred of logic that urged him against the man's words.

Harry was staring at Severus with wide green eyes. They were completely his mother's, fitted in a face that was a carbon copy of his father's. It was shocking, how Baby Potter looked like the perfect blend of the two. Even so, Sev had never seen Lily's eyes stare at him with the expression that Potter was wearing now. Disturbingly blank.

Severus stared back at Potter, uneasily, and the baby didn't blink or stir away. It was unsettling.

"I think I liked you more when you cried, Potter."

Potter didn't show the slightest hint of understanding him, yet carried on with the staring. After a moment or two, Severus shrugged this off and placed the rags near the bowl. Potter himself was an oddity to behold in his youth, trust his baby to have nailed the death stare this early in life as well.

Although, at this point, Severus wasn't sure whether the creepy staring contest was a baby thing… or a Potter thing.

He reached a hand to the bowl and dipped the rag while his eyes were glued to Potter, wishing that he had the foresight to gather a scarring balm and a pain-relieving potion as well. Then he decided that it really didn't matter, not only the dosage measuring would be a hassle, but the potion master himself was very reluctant to give Potter's baby anything that he might later regret.

"This would be over soon Potter," Severus said, almost as a vow. "And then you can snuggle Dumbledore's pet wolf or the rat."

Honestly, he couldn't see what all the fuss was about. James Potter's baby would be safe and sound.

Just as he leaned down to clean Harry's face, a knife levitated from his countertop and zoomed right past him, missing his eye by a hairbreadth and embedding itself firmly into the wall over his shoulder. Quicker than a blink, and swifter than a spell, he was almost about to lose an eye.

Dear Merlin and Circe…Did that just happen?

Severus froze. His eyes went wide and his mouth slightly hung open, he looked at the baby with accusation and subtle rage but was surprised when Harry's face crumpled and he was crying again.

"Oh my god," Severus said, after a beat, and dropped the dripping rag to pick the baby up in his arms. He couldn't trust the infant by himself, not after he nearly i murdered /i Severus.

In his defense though, Severus thought somewhat wryly, the baby looked more terrified of his bout of…whatever it was than Severus himself. He just nearly lost an eye. Potter threw a i knife /i at his face. A fifteen-month-old baby, whose vocabulary didn't extend to anything beyond 'Mommy and Dada' almost succeeded in doing what the dark lord couldn't.

Well, he is the boy who defeated Voldemort after all. Severus had no idea how, but he must have. He had a miracle baby in his arms. Who could also throw knives.

'He's in danger,' James Potter had said, but what he really should have said, or meant, was that 'He's THE danger, don't leave knives around him, Snape.'

This thought prompted Severus to stride out of the kitchen and rush upstairs, to the guest room with no dangerous cutlery or sharp-edged furniture around. He very much liked to remain intact, and also Potter could hurt himself with his outbursts.

That much power, inside that tiny body, he thought in wonder. How could that be?

How could the result of James Potter's genes and Lily Evans' be something much more powerful than anyone had ever seen? It didn't seem right, it couldn't be possible. This much magic cooped up, inside a baby, or even a full-grown adult, wasn't natural. Magic wasn't all about inheritance; it needed to be matured. To be tended to with utter delicacy and education, that's why children were prone to accidental magic in the first place, but to have it at this age and to this severity?

It was unheard of.

**

"He didn't know what to do. On one hand, he could have gone through with the plan, called this Dumbledore person and ridden himself of an unstable baby who could hurt anyone without even meaning to do it, on the other…calling them would mean exposing me and my magic, something that obviously no one knew about, especially not The Order. This wasn't only unheard of, it was physically impossible. And he wasn't sure how it happened, whether it was inherent," he paused. "Or caused by the backlash of the Dark Lord's curse."

"It does sound impossible," Shacklebolt sounded like he didn't believe a word coming out of Harry's mouth. That was fine. Harry wouldn't get mad. Dad would be disappointed, and Harry honestly could do better.

"That's what he always told me anyway," Harry smiled at the blank-faced man. "I was his 'incredible little brat," maybe the information was too personal, for Harry to share with a stranger, a stone-faced Auror just waiting for an excuse to lock him up in a ward. But Harry didn't care. He missed Dad, so much. He was afraid, confused, and just a bit angry, and all he could think about in that posh office imprisoning him was how he remembered the times Dad called him his 'Incredible little brat' as a child.

Those three little words of affection, was all Harry craved a child, and grew exasperated at as a teen. Dad loved teasing him about it, and Harry really didn't mind, even though he pretended he did. He wished he hadn't now. For all he knew, Dad could die, not knowing just how much Harry loved being called Dad's 'incredible little brat'.

Because it was just the two of them against the world, and even though Dad had to sacrifice everything, he still loved Harry. Even though this was all Harry's fault, Dad would never be mad. He'd just always be his 'incredible little brat'.

Dad had said. 'Time for dinner now, and I mean it, you incredible brat,' and Harry rolled his eyes at him.

He'd fallen off his broom and Dad was patching up his knees. 'It's not going to hurt anymore, do you know why?'

Eight-year-old him made a face at the weird foul-smelling balm. 'You put the smelly paste on it?'

Severus wrinkled his nose at him with amusement, he pretended to think for a beat, and then shook his head. 'No, I'm sure it must be because you're my incredible little brat.' Harry grinned slyly. 'And little brats don't cry over scraped knees.'

'You're not supposed to stir it that way!' Dad's raised voice sent chills all over his body and Harry cringed. He threw a sheepish grin over his shoulder and Dad mellowed. 'Throw the Newt's eyes first, you incredible little brat.' He said in utter exasperation.

'I'm still your incredible little brat Dad, I promise.' Harry closed his eyes. He'd all but forgotten about Shacklebolt's awkward presence in the room with him.

"Mr. Potter?"

"You don't believe me," Harry said as he opened his eyes. "But you have no idea what that disbelief could cost you Shacklebolt. I could kill every single one of us if you push me enough."

"I find that quite hard to believe Mr. Potter, as I said, our healers hadn't detected any abnormalities in your magical aura." Shacklebolt almost looked as if he was pitying Harry. "I'm quite sure you're making this story up…or you've been lied to, your whole life."

Harry snorted. Oh, how he itched to show this brute of a man who he was dealing with. He could trash this room, rip the pretty curtains, and blast the wizard right through the charmed windows. Let the man fall on the hard marble floor.

Then he'll learn not to accuse Harry's father of lying to him.

'Don't even think about it Harry,' that's definitely something Dad would have said. 'I'll have you scrubbing cauldrons until you're all old and grey.'  
Harry smothered the smoky clouds threatening to cloud his vision and looked past Shacklebolt's shoulder to stare at a framed Daily Prophet proudly hanging on the wall. The frame cracked and loudly shattered the next instance, sending Shacklebolt lunging to the side and drawing his wand.

"This room had protective wards all over it," Kingsley said, slightly out of breath as he inspected the shattered mess on the floor. "What tricks are you playing?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. People just never listened, did they?

"Why don't you get back in your seat so we can carry on, and while you're at it, hand me a piece of parchment." He nodded to the file on the desk as Shacklebolt slowly settled back into his seat. Harry's own origami boat was now torn in half, thanks to this man's stupidity, the least he could do, was supplying the paper.

"Why?" Harry ignored the question and waited until the man hastily drew a piece of parchment from the file and slid it over. It was a briefing. Harry didn't let his eyes rest on the words and merely skimmed over them before he did the first fold.

"I happen to know how to prevent myself from blowing us up," Harry finally shrugged as the silence dragged on. "And I love origami."

"You want me to believe-."

"I don't want you to believe a single thing." The boy cut in. "I just want you to see. Surely it cannot be that hard."

He could see the Auror gritting his teeth. He didn't care. Harry had the story they needed, and they had what Harry needed in return.

"If you cannot commit to this, then you shouldn't be in this room. If you are, then that means you chose to be here with me, and you chose to listen, now whether you believe me or not is not my responsibility. It's all yours."

Shacklebolt didn't respond. Harry cross-folded the parchment, distractedly. He took the silence as a cue to continue.

"Feathers," Harry said. "That's what it was all about in the earlier days."

**

Potter liked causing chaos. That much was obvious.

The issue, with Potter's newfound venting off method, was that it terrified the baby himself. Harry shook the bed on which they both sat upon, dropped the scarce shelves and then scared himself further with the loud noises as the windows shook and rattled and threatened to shatter.

Severus didn't even attempt taking out his wand, there was already too much magic in the room. It was stifling, and quite frankly, it was making Severus more restless by the minute, and he had no idea how to stop it.

Even if he knew how to take care of regular babies in the first place, Potter's case seemed to be different.

"It's alright," Severus shushed the child. He got up and started pacing the room again, and the chaos moved with them, but he paid it no mind. He couldn't let Harry keep on crying any more than he already had, the baby was going to hurt himself.

Maybe he should give him a dreamless sleep potion, quickly figure out the dosage and force-feed the child if he has to, but on the other hand, …he couldn't just drug a baby.

"You're the one making noise Harry, I promise. We're safe."

He put a hand over Harry's ear to muffle the sound of the door banging repeatedly against the hinges and moved over to the bed again, where it was safer. Harry's breathing calmed as Severus's hand muffled the havoc, and they sat on the bed again.

Severus noticed the boy's calmed breathing immediately and sighed in relief. Then positioned the baby so his face was gently leaned against Severus's-Still blood-soaked- robes. At least he couldn't see or hear the damage anymore.

"It's alright. You're just tired aren't you?" Severus felt silly for talking to the infant when the baby couldn't even hear Sev, but he couldn't deny the comfort it offered. More for his sake than Harry's.

This changed things. A lot of things.

"You're just like your father Potter, loud and dramatic." He continued but then felt a stab of guilt, as he was reminded of James Potter's pain-ridden eyes pleadingly staring into his soul, merely an hour ago.

James must have known that his son wasn't a regular child. He and Lily both must have known, what The Prophesy meant, more than anyone else did at the time. If they felt the need to hide it from everyone, then there must be more to this.

Severus wasn't an idiot; he needed to act rationally, like a proper Slytherin, and a mature adult. He was twenty-one now, if Potter had managed to keep a baby alive for fifteen months at twenty-one then so could Severus.

He nodded to himself once, his back straightening, as he adjusted Harry on his lap and reach for a pillow. He had no idea what he was doing, and apparently, Harry seemed just as baffled when Severus promptly dropped the pillow on his lap.

Harry cautiously grabbed the edge of the pillow in a death grip and then looked up at Severus with puffy eyes and a pout. Severus patted a hand on the pillow.

"How about we abandon the door and windows you destroyed and see what's in this pillow?"

Feathers were harmless.

Harry made a noise and copied Severus by patting the pillow himself before looking up at Severus again.

"You're doing well Harry," Sev awkwardly praised the little boy and then patted the pillow once again, he was scared that the offending item would explode in their faces in a cloud of feathers and cotton, and scare Harry into another crying fit.

The baby imitated him again, this time with a hesitant smile as he looked up to Severus for praise.

"Very good Harry," Severus muttered, running a hand over Harry's messy hair. He dragged the pillow closer to Harry, grasped the edges and then inwardly rolled his eyes at himself.

"Do you want to see what makes it so soft?" Harry cooed at the pillow and the rattling windows eased back into their hinges. Sev gulped and then carefully tore the edge of the pillow. He was an idiot, but he was also exhausted, and he had a miracle baby to deal with. Tearing a pillow or two wouldn't do anyone any harm.

Potter watched his hands tearing the white fabric with rapt silence, he seemed very curious as to where Severus was going with this, and Sev had to admit, he was very curious as to what the hell he was doing too.

"Pillows are filled with feathers," he slowly eased his hand from Potter's ears and tore the stitching. Then sighed before reaching in to retrieve a handful of feathers and tiny cotton balls.

"Birds have feathers, Potter, I'm not sure if you have encountered one yet, but it's most likely that you've seen these on owls."

Potter reached for the feathers and steadied himself by holding Severus's left forearm in a death grip. Severus's head snapped to his forearm where Harry's small fingers were tightly clutching his sleeve, resting right on top of his dark mark.

He couldn't help but stare at Harry's hand, distractedly letting the baby entertain himself with the feathers. All Severus could hear above Potter's gentle coos and baby babbling was the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.

He wasn't sure what hit him the hardest, the astonishing symbolism of Potter unknowingly, innocently touching the mark of death, or the lump in his throat as the day's events crashed into him all at once, just as the baby seemed to have calmed down.

Lily was dead, and so was her husband. Their insanely magical baby was sitting on Severus's lap, and no one could know that he was with Severus, because if people saw, if they just knew how much power this tiny body held…Severus couldn't even finish the thought.

Albus Dumbledore, even he would be affected by the baby's power. Severus wasn't an idiot, and Dumbledore wasn't all light and glory. The man was leading a war, and he was tired, they all were so tired. If he saw the opportunity Harry offered…he would sacrifice the child as if he were a lamb to be slaughtered.

'Hide him,'

Hiding the boy who lived meant that they couldn't stay at his house anymore. It was just him, against the whole wizarding community.

'No one can know,'

Because if they did, Harry wouldn't survive. Even James Potter knew that much.

Harry tore a few feathers from his slackened hand and shook his tiny fist at Severus with an inquisitive groan.

Severus knew what he was going to do before even looking down at Lily's eyes. There was no way he was abandoning this baby, he wasn't calling anyone to come to fetch him. This boy was not only his best friend's legacy but also an innocent child who was absolutely defenseless. James Potter had made him promise to run and hide his son, but he didn't even need to do that.

Severus was keeping Harry, and they were running away. 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Warnings: Explicit language, Mild bleeding, Anger issues

I strongly suggest you guys listen to 'Broken Crown' by 'Mumford and sons' while reading this chapter.

Prompt(s) used from the tournament:

_Tinsel  
_Snow Angels

* * *

**Chapter 3; Tinsel Mess**

"Our house was a fortress. Not a bad thing, per se. It caged both of us, but he made it seem so different that it took me years to notice. So good, so precious, that at times, I think he barely saw the invisible restraints himself." Harry held a finger above his steaming tea. Freshly brewed and brought by a nervous dodgy Auror in training, the same idiot who forgot to bind Harry's hands. He watched as the white swirls bent around his finger, lapping up the warmth against his skin.

They never lived in one place for long, it was laughable to think so, but when Harry was younger he barely noticed the constant moving, the looks Dad threw over his shoulder, then tension on his back as he had to uproot and run in a matter of hours or get caught with Harry and possibly killed.

Harry's lack of attention to those facts wasn't because he was a child, it was because Dad never made it seem as if they were leaving their home behind and running away from people. He was Harry's home, and they were playing a game, so they just needed to change their hiding places every once in a while, and then start there.

Harry used to love it.

He stared down at the cup. He knew he would never drink that tea. He didn't trust these people enough to take anything from them. Especially food that they could've tampered or spiked. He wasn't a moron. His father was a potions master.

Kingsley watched, unimpressed as ever as the teen finally leaned back and looked up.

"We were playing a game in that cage. Imagine a fortress, a 'prison', where you get to make blanket tents, and write silly books, and try crazy foods, and you get to have someone who loves you more than the whole world put together, who would die to protect you, never gets bored of you. Never stops loving you."

'Wouldn't he though?' A traitorous voice whispered in his head. 'After all you did to him, he would have every right to abhor the sight of you.'  
Shut up.

"You're talking about a death eater." Shacklebolt was saying.

Harry glared at the man, but then quickly squashed down the rising anger. "I'm talking about a father." He said and looked down at the paper bird in his hands.

It was his fault. Everything was his fault. Dad didn't deserve a son like Harry, he didn't deserve the life Harry made him have, and now…with this mess. Dad could die because of him.

"I was a danger, not just to him," he continued out loud, forcefully to push the intrusive thoughts away. He couldn't afford to be angry with himself. Not now. "To everyone."

"I was a keg about to explode," he raised his voice. Shacklebolt had no right to judge his father. Nobody had that right. Dad had no other choice.  
"He knew that, and you were all sniffing around for me like bloodhounds after a butcher, so his options were not that much to being with." He couldn't help sneering. "He had no other choice other than hiding me, other than teaching me how not to be myself because people could have gotten killed! He wasn't my jail guard, Shacklebolt. He was a prisoner, just like me."

He didn't hear the cup breaking under his finger, rather, he felt the scorching liquid against his hand and clothes, and then watched, dazed as Shacklebolt jumped back from his seat once again and drew his wand. Harry looked down at his hand, vividly crisscrossed with burnt marks and dripping steaming droplets of tea dribbling on the table.

Shacklebolt glared at him and then vanished the mess.

"You need to stop doing that Potter, whatever it is that you're doing. You're disturbing the wards."

'Control yourself, Harry,' Dad said, with crossed arms as he stood on the other side of Harry's locked door. The fourteen-year-old was sulking.

'I didn't raise a hooligan, I expect better of you.'

It was one of the few times Harry remembered Dad being stern with him, or talking to him in that biting harsh tone of his that could chill the bones right off of any sane person. Harry couldn't even remember what he had done wrong, but he was angry, and so was Dad.

Harry's rage was shaking the walls, but Dad remained unimpressed.

'Stop doing that,' he had said.

"Stop doing that Potter!" Shacklebolt exclaimed in parallel to the voice in Harry's head. "I bloody well mean it."

Harry raised his chin and stared at the man, only to find him looking at Harry's bleeding finger with an uncomfortable look on his face. Harry retracted the offending hand and settled it on his lap.

"He had no other choice," he repeated, with more confidence this time. "I was a child, I didn't know any better. No child was supposed to be born with that much unrestrained power. It was _wrong _. Every little thing set me off, I could hurt everyone around me with a single glance…Even Dad wasn't exempt from that."

"I hurt him, unintentionally, constantly, over every little thing that would have been deemed 'normal' for other toddlers. So much so, that I wasn't _allowed _to touch people." Harry spat the word as if it was an insult. "He never complained, he never punished me for it, he never stopped loving me."

He should have, and he could have, but he never did. Harry didn't know whether to love him all the more for it or hate himself for causing him this much pain and misery.

"I didn't know I was doing it, he never showed the pain I caused him," it was something that had plagued Harry's mind for a while now.  
How much did Dad really hide from him?

When Severus began, his voice was lower than a whisper, and it needn't be any louder. Harry was a rapt listener. The child's bed was a little cramped for Severus's long adult limbs, but he made the effort to get in and-Merlin forbid he ever use that phrase out loud- 'cuddle' at storytime.

He laid on his side, face to face with the seven-year-old, his legs awkwardly stuck out of the bed, but he didn't mind. Storytime was Harry's favorite part of the day. Harry grinned weakly back at him, he was particularly worn out that day, and it was almost nine anyway, an hour past his bedtime.  
Harry wanted a new story tonight, and he didn't want Severus to 'cheat' by grabbing a new book.

Unfortunately, Sev wasn't that imaginative or talented, so he just laid on the small, cramped bed and stared at the seven-year-old boy whom he loved as if he were his own child by blood. Harry stared back, in that eerie way that he did sometimes, but Severus didn't mind it at all anymore. He knew that with him it was different. He was just observing Severus, carefully cataloging each line and crook of his face to memory. The child did that to a lot of things around them. At times, Severus found his son staring at the floor for a full hour, or scrutinizing a fork for minutes and minutes until Severus called his name.

Storytime was a favorite, precisely because Harry got to accomplish his daily 'observing session' with Severus and the changes that might have come upon him each day, and get to use his imagination to flourish the story he was hearing at the same time. Severus made a point of adding something subtle but silly to his face each time before bedtime.

Harry would point to the small mole, or the tiny potion vial or an inkblot hidden in Severus's face with the expression of utter joy and pride on his face and then throw himself in Sev's arms for a celebratory hug. That night, there was a small feather under Severus' chin and Harry had yet to find it.  
But Severus started the story regardless.

"There was once, a little fawn who lived under the valley, in a magical forest with his parents and all their friends." He didn't know why he was telling this particular story. He could hear the sound of his own heart hammering against his ribs, like a frightened bird's. This could go very badly.

He reached a hand and smoothed it over Harry's hair, just to comfort himself. "The little fawn was too little to remember, too young to know, but he adored his Mommy and Daddy and they loved and cared for him in return." Harry nodded with a smile.

"One night, when the little fawn was asleep, a bad man found their home." Severus swallowed and readjusted the sheets around Harry. Should he really be telling this to a seven-year-old?

"He wanted to hurt the little fawn, but Mommy and Daddy were awake, and they loved the fawn so much that they couldn't bear to let the man take him away,"

Harry finally moved his gaze to Severus' eyes with a thoughtful hum. "Did they stop him?"

"Yes they did," Severus should have stopped, but Harry was enthralled, even though Sev's way of unaided storytelling sucked. "But he-he had to take Mommy and Daddy with him, forever. However, the little fawn wasn't alone. Um…a raven…a friendly raven, who was friends with the parents, arrived just before they took the fawn's father, and he made the raven promise that he would love and take care of his little baby."

"I like ravens, Daddy." His son murmured with a yawn.

Severus didn't let himself be affected by the metaphorical meaning behind the words. "Me too." He muttered back at Harry without really meaning it and then sighed.

Lily's eyes were like vast rain forests as she stared at him, lively and mysterious especially when she smiled. Harry's were the very definition of spring, and the young father found himself startled nearly every time he gazed deeply into them. It felt as if his lungs were filled with fresh crisp air as he stood at the edge of a cliff. It was refreshing, especially when his son smiled. Severus felt as if he was on the verge of falling down the precipice.

Harry really did love him.

"The raven took the little baby with him but he was scared." Severus was terrified. "He wanted to bring the little fawn to the great white owl in their forest, so he would know what to do with the baby, but what he didn't know was that…The little fawn was a gift."

"A gift?"

"Yeah, he was special, and he could do extraordinary things that no one ever could. And the raven found out that maybe…the little fawn was a miracle, _his _miracle, and he had to be cherished and loved, and the raven had to be honored and privileged above all the other animals, to get to care for him."

Harry frowned and pushed off his blankets, and then attempted to prop himself on his elbows. "What does…pri-privi-."  
Severus gently pushed him back down. "Privileged means grateful," he said with a smirk. "It's when someone thanks somebody else for receiving a great gift."

"Like the raven?"

His smirk broadened and Severus shrugged. "Yeah, like the raven. He was very thankful, and he wanted to show that by always keeping the little fawn happy, no matter what. Because when the fawn got upset, his incredible power got the better of him and…lashed out. But that was always all right with the raven because he loved the little fawn and the baby loved him in return. It was just them against the world."

"Like us?"

Well, it is the story of our lives. Sev thought dryly but didn't let the emotion slip onto his face.

"Kind of like us." He admitted reluctantly. "But we're not fighting the world, just playing a game, remember?" it was an important differentiation to make, and Severus was hoping to install the concept into Harry's mind early on. They were playing a game, the two of them. They were playing hide and seek with the world, and no one else was allowed to play. "We're a team, you and I. and everyone else is on the other team." He reminded James's son yet again.

Harry stared at him and shifted in his cot. "Were the raven and his baby playing hide and seek too?"

Severus raised his head and pushed himself off Harry's bed with a grimace. "Maybe," he said, ignoring the crick in his neck to lean and tuck Harry in. "But I'll tell you all about that later." He ruffled Harry's hair and the boy squawked, laughing and wriggling under Severus's hand. "It's time to sleep, you little brat."

Harry batted Severus' hand away with a pout. "I'm not little!"

The pout resembled the ghost of James's sneer for less than a moment before it dissipated. Severus shook his head at himself with a firm scold.  
'He's not his father. He will never grow into that man. Even though he had loved his son with the last breath he took, I'm not about to let Harry make the same mistakes.'

'Tell him I loved him,' Severus didn't see how he could. James might have been Harry's biological father but Harry was only seven, the concept couldn't be explained to him. He was too young and too volatile to hear the truth, too immature to understand it. Severus will tell him, he had to tell him someday, but that day wasn't going to arrive any time soon.

Severus let the Occlumency shields firmly congeal themselves in place and then tilted his head at Harry with amusement. "Oh really?" he crossed his arms. "So you are a brat?"

Harry shrugged. A yawn stretched his face wide and his eyes watering by the sheer force and longevity of the pull on his facial muscles. Really tired out now, Severus thought with a smirk. With any luck, Harry would sleep in tomorrow, and give Severus some extra time to finish his latest batch of blood replenishing potions with no interruption.

As he turned to leave, however, a small hand closed around his sleeve.

"Can you stay?" the tiny voice asked.

"Is everything alright?"

Harry nodded with narrowed eyes but looked conflicted. His eyes distractedly drifted to his chin. "Yes Daddy, I just-."

"Oh!" Suddenly he shot up from his cot and pulled himself up, using Severus's sleeve as leverage. The boy bounced on the heel of his feet and tilted his head to peer at Severus's chin with wide eyes and great interest.

Severus sighed. Of course, the feather. He almost forgot about its presence and was more than glad to let Harry sleep rather than mention anything. There was no need to do that, apparently. The feather was found.

Severus sighed again, and sat back on the bed, pushing Harry back into his cot as the bed dipped under his weight. He raised his eyebrows at his son, and Harry's grin returned. The boy was jumping on the bed in his excitement.

"I found it!" he yelled again before he burst into a contagious bout of giggles. Of course, he did, Severus thought dryly. A seven-year-old would laugh at a crack in the wall, a feather on his father's chin that was 'in no way deliberately put there?' That must have been hilarious.

"Found what, you little brat?"

"The feather!" Harry gasped. "It looks funny,"

"Are you telling me that there's a feather on my chin?"

Harry bobbed his head with a groggy grin and pointed at the inked feather with his finger. "There it is Daddy! Look! Someone drawed-"

Sev cut in. "Drew."

"Drew a feather on your chin!"

"You better hope it's not you Harry."

"Or what?" Harry leaned heavily on Sev's arms to balance himself on the bed.

Severus had to take a deep breath to stifle the urge to move Harry's hand away from his arm. The touch was burning the skin underneath his sleeve, a result of Harry's excitement, undoubtedly.

"Or…I'll sell all your toys." He said, fleetingly distracted by the pain. He pasted another smirk on his face and gently eased Harry back in the bed. "Sleep now," he brushed the boy's forehead with the back of his hand and stood, trying his best to look composed. _Push through the pain, _he told himself. _Pain is never permanent, Harry's good night ritual is._

"I love you, Daddy," Harry mumbled just as he was by the door.

Severus hesitated, just for a beat as he did every night. As though he was surprised by the declaration every time. Harry never noticed of course, and Sev always got himself together in time to say "I love you too,"

He felt like saying more, telling Harry that he wasn't the only one, that his biological father and Lily had loved him even more than Sev, he felt like striding back over to the seven-year-old and hugging him again, in spite of his throbbing arm, but he didn't.

He was a coward. That's why Lily left him. He was incapable of showing emotion, and hearing that somebody actually found it in themselves to love him on a daily basis wasn't easy. Not for him anyway.

He knew exactly how Harry saw him. As a strong unbeatable force that could do no wrong. Severus was Harry's hero, and Sev felt guilty enough to take the blame for that huge misjudgment on the child's part.

Severus was all Harry saw and interacted with daily. The other children-even though they were all muggles- could sense Harry's power pouring in ripples out of him, shimmering and radiant. It bled in the background like a dull ringing. It felt suffocating, overwhelming, even, and it made other people very uneasy. The children avoiding his son, as a result, didn't come as a surprise to Severus.

He also didn't fathom that his child was taking it hard either, Harry already had a best friend in his guardian and it was all he had known all his life. He didn't feel any void, or any loss at not interacting with these people, because he just didn't know what it felt like.

You cannot miss the things you never had.

In spite of those conditions, Severus had made it blatantly clear that Harry wasn't allowed to touch other people. In fact, anyone that wasn't Severus himself was out of limit.

There were…instances before, where Harry had unknowingly hurt others when touched. Once when Severus made the gigantic mistake of leaving him in a local Daycare for a single day as he was too busy brewing an order…the other, was two weeks ago, at the park.

The daycare debacle was enough to convince Severus never to leave his child's side again, not after the idiotic muggle woman had overwhelmed Harry by forcing him to interact with other children. Harry had been paralyzed, by the attention and the abundance of that many children around him. And had struck out. Unexplainably leaving the damn muggle with a jarring, gushing gash on her arm.

She called in a panic. Severus rushed over, erased her memories, and pretended as if nothing had happened. He didn't ask Harry about it, and the boy had been more than glad to forget the disastrous experience before they had even moved houses again.

It wasn't a big deal, Severus reassured himself. Harry would be fine as long as Severus was there to protect him. So what if he got a few burns or scrapes along the way? It didn't matter as long as Harry was safe.  
It didn't matter as long as Harry didn't mean to cause harm. A child, as innocent and as pure as his son never could, but Severus hoped that his nurturing would also prevent such an occurrence.  
The throbbing burn on his arm calmed with that thought and Severus almost smiled.

"We used to have storytimes when I was a child." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "It was our thing. It seems hard to believe for you people, that Severus Snape, the notorious death eater, the 'murderer' would lay down next to his child every night and tell him stories until he drifted off to sleep. But he did, he did it every single night without a fail."

"One night, when I was six or seven, I asked him to tell me a new story, one that he couldn't find in the books on my shelf. He told me the story of 'the little fawn and his raven'. He left earlier that night, so I sneaked out of my bed, and followed him, I don't know why."

"I was so confused when he winced and reached for his potion bag, but maybe I shouldn't have been."

He remembered that night the same way he remembered his own name. He remembered shrugging off the blankets that Dad had tucked him in, the floorboards that were freezing cold against his skin. Sending jolts through his body and making him shiver as he quietly trailed the man downstairs to the kitchen.

He didn't know why he'd done it, maybe to play a game, a late-night round of hide and seek, jump out of the corner with a loud 'Boo!' and then throw himself into Dad's arms and win another story, or maybe somewhere deep down, he knew that something was wrong with the man.

Dad didn't notice him sitting near the kitchen entrance, with his neck craned over his shoulder to peer at the older man while his knees dug into the cold floor.

He watched then, with morbid fascination as his father peeled back his sleeve with a pained hiss and revealed burnt skin, marred with painful looking blisters and angry red handprints. Harry's handprints on his father's sleeve when he had hugged just a few minutes ago.

Harry gasped, he did cry too, silently as his dad winced and groaned and administered a healing balm on his skin without a single complaint. He didn't know what he had done wrong, or how he had exactly done it, but he knew one thing.

Even then, he knew it was his fault. He had hurt Daddy, really badly, just by touching him. He had learned a valuable lesson that night, on the floor, while eavesdropping; his love hurt his Daddy, and his joy and happiness _burnt _, scarred and marred the things that he did love.

For a week afterward, Harry had refused to touch his father, long enough for his childlike logic to kick in and repress the memory, long enough for him to miss his father's arms. But years later, he still remembered.

How could his father tolerate this? Tolerate the pain and the blisters and not make a peep, as Harry had unknowingly been the cause of it?

"I still don't know the answer. I tried asking him once, actually more than once, loving a monster like me couldn't have been easy. Loving and raising one? It must have been a nightmare for him. Whenever I brought it up though, he told me this particular story, of when I was still an infant and he took me shopping."

"Shopping?" Kingsley said it in a way that alienated the meaning of the word completely. It was an irritating interruption that was quickly losing its appeal to Harry. He swallowed his anger with a long sigh.

"Yes, in a second-hand store in a nameless town. He'd only had me for a week by then, and he was running very low on money, and well…I was a baby, and babies aren't inexpensive you know."

Holding a baby for an extended amount of time was an absolute nightmare, Severus had found, and he was more than glad when he found the opportunity to sit Potter in a red plastic cart in a charity shop.

He didn't think it was safe enough to let go of the child for even more than a second while they were still in London, in plain view, so he had kept Harry close to his chest with one arm and basically id everything with his other.

He had been caring for Harry for seven days now, and the effects already showed. Two distinct sleeping bags were nestled under his drooping eyes, his outfit was disheveled at best and outright shabby at its worst. Severus had spent every second of those seven days taking care of a moody, supernatural baby who could blow things up at will.

It was a miracle that he was even standing on two feet, really, Severus couldn't afford weakness. They were on the run, from practically everyone who once knew of their existence.

Severus's whole life was charmed into a shrunk bag in his pocket, all the money he had-which wasn't much- outside of his vaults had been traded into muggle money in a shady crook in Knockturn alley at midnight.

Severus had even convinced himself to sell his most cherished potion ingredients for a bit of extra money until he could find somewhere to settle. Now they were out of London, seven days later, in an unassuming town that he had picked at random. In a charity shop, because Severus couldn't even fathom finding a regular store with the amount of money he currently had and had no idea how to use.

Muggle money was such a pain to handle, and he regretted not learning their system much sooner than this day.

Harry didn't protest as he was put down in the cart and instead looked around with awed interest. He was a very silent child, Severus had found. The child hadn't babbled or baby talked with Severus at all in these past seven days, and his most preferred form of communication with the man was either wailing, or silent staring.

Severus cherished the silence, but still couldn't allow himself to lose composure.

"This is a charity store Potter," he quietly told the child as he looked around. "I'm hoping that this will be our first and last visit."

This place seemed discreet enough for a while. Severus might even consider renting a cottage in this place until he figured out how he was going to go about this.

He needed a job. Obviously. And a new name. Also obvious, since he couldn't find said job with his own identity. By now, almost everyone must have known about Severus 'kidnapping' the boy who lived. Severus got to glimpse at one paper or two on his late-night visit to the Knockturn alley.

"Alright, Harry," he took a hold of the cart and gave it a slow experimental push. What a queer invention, he thought in slight amusement as the wheels rolled the cart forward. Muggles were such strange creatures. "Let's see what we will need."

He could have stolen the things they needed, easily, with not an ounce of a nuisance. These were muggles. Not only he could have stolen what he wanted, but he could have easily erased their memory and gotten away with it.

Instead of using his Slytherin cunning, however, Severus found himself pushing the cart once again through the crowded aisles. Harry stared at him in silence, as if applauding Sev's honorable choice and newfound morals, and Severus glared back, cursing under his breath.

"As if you would know any better if I stole a thing, Potter," he grumbled, and Potter grunted in reply. "You cannot even tell your toes apart from your thumb."

Harry made an indignant noise at Severus's snide jab. Sev rolled his eyes at the baby.

The store was empty, with the exception of a plump middle-aged woman behind the counter, holding a muggle newspaper in her hands. Quaint muggle music was playing from the radio, enhancing the coziness of the cramped shop, and Severus could already see the sun setting from the storefront and let a tendril of anxiety slip past his Occlumency shields.

They had no place to stay the night. He had to find a motel, maybe charm the muggles or persuade them to let him stay and then go in search of a cottage the day after.

Potter squealed in delight as Severus rounded the cart and stood to examine the baby clothes. Potter only had three sets in his diaper bag, and that just wasn't cutting it.

"You should see what riding a broom feels like Potter," Severus said with an amused smirk. "This cart on wheels wouldn't even compare."

The baby waved his arms and held the cart's bars with interest to peer at the shelves. Severus left him to entertain himself and then turned to the clothes with a slight sneer on his face. It was bound to get very cold soon, and the baby needed warmer clothes, anything warmer than the overalls he was wearing now. They were also out of diapers, but Severus had yet to see any packages here, he would have to go to a convenience store for that.

He had packed as many clothes as he could have himself, including his robes, and winter attire. The furniture too, Severus had picked out anything that wasn't too magical and would function as a muggle device later on. He wasn't an idiot. He had to make use of what he already had.

So, clothes and diapers for Potter, also a cot, for Potter, a winter jacket for himself as all he had were his thick wizarding robes, maybe a few books on muggle etiquette, if he managed to find any, and also one on parenting.

Because Severus had no idea, what the hell he was doing. It had taken him nearly _fifteen minutes _to figure out how the diaper worked on Harry's first change, nearly double that time to figure out what babies could and couldn't eat and an embarrassing amount of time to bathe Potter without the fear of nearly drowning the baby. At one point after each task, he found himself questioning his intelligence before Potter demanded his attention again.

He could heartily understand the difficulties new parents went through, and he envied them more because of that extra nine months they got to figure out the things Severus had to teach himself in seven days.

He picked out a fuzzy blue overall and held it out to Potter. "How do you like this one?" it looked warm enough, and the price tag was showed a decent amount. At least, Severus thought it did. Muggle money baffled him.

Harry tore his eyes from the shelf he was staring at and reached a hand to pat the overall. Then he looked at Severus for approval. Sev winced. That was a new thing, Potter had picked up ever since the pillow incident seven nights prior.

"Very good Harry," Severus nodded, somewhat awkwardly. "Do you like it?" as Harry patted the attire again Severus found himself rolling his eyes at himself. He was asking a baby whether he liked a piece of second-hand clothing? What was wrong with him!?

He dropped the overall in the cart and picked out another one, this one a light red with cartoonish birds on it. Potter 'oohed' and 'awed' at it as it was thrown into the cart and Severus took that in stride.

"Yes Harry," he said distractedly. "I've told you about birds, haven't I? Their feathers help us make pillows."

Potter squealed again, and Severus ignored him and went through the aisles with narrowed eyes and a conscious state of mind. He had a very limited budget after all.

It wasn't until Potter's squeals shifted to angry protests that Severus bothered gazing at him over his shoulder to check on the boy. There were two rows of purple tinsel levitating above the cart, one lazily wrapped around the baby's neck as Harry tried to reach for the other.

Severus cursed and dove to catch the levitating spangle and potter's protests morphed into silence cries. "For the love of merlin Potter," Severus snapped, with the tinsel twisting in his hands. "Get yourself together."

Potter's cries increased in volume, and the muggle woman craned her neck to stare at them. Severus glared her down and turned back to Harry. "Harry, stop crying. Please."

He handed the tinsel to Potter but the waterworks were already into play and Potter decided that he needed to throw a tantrum, right then in the shop with a muggle woman around.

Severus scooped him up in his arms and prayed to merlin that Harry's magic wouldn't act as irrationally as the one-year-old himself. He bounced Harry in his arms and distanced himself from the cart, Harry was stilling gripping the tinsel, and it flowed behind them as Severus walked the boy back to the aisle that held the ridiculous things.

This is why he never wanted children. He thought with a groan. It took them _years _to put their common sense into some use, and that on itself was a miss or hit opportunity with most.

"Here they are you brat," he said to a sniffing Harry as the tinsels came back in sight, and the muggle woman was blocked from view.  
Harry sniffed again, and pathetically whimpered as Severus handed him the tip of a green sparkly chain. "Oh quit it, you," Severus grumbled and untangled the green one from the others. "You're getting what you wanted."

Severus had to take two other rolls of that deplorable garland and the snow angel ornaments before Potter quietened down and nothing was about to blow up anymore. Hesitantly, Severus put Harry back in the cart, this time surrendered with more than five strings of tinsels in vibrant colors. They made an annoying whooshing sound that Harry seemed very fond of, and Severus closed his eyes to stifle his annoyance.

If this kept Potter from causing havoc and destroying their cover, then Severus really didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

He picked out the first suitable cot he could find in the pile and then rushed to the counter, the winter jacket had to wait then since he hadn't anticipated Potter's holiday 'shopping' to get in the way of his precise planning.

Harry cooed and held one of the snow angels to Severus with a huge grin on his small face, and Sev closed a hand around his. He couldn't stay mad at the baby, he couldn't lie to himself about that.

"Very pretty, isn't it?" he muttered and Harry hummed. Severus pushed the cart to the muggle woman.

"You're going to be absolutely intolerable at Christmas, aren't you?" Severus smiled in spite of himself and then shook his head. It used to frighten him, to have a strong bond with the baby, or grow attached to him, but he couldn't help himself.

He didn't see Lily or James in the boy, all he saw was innocence and purity that he had sworn to protect no matter what.

"Single Dad huh?" the muggle woman asked with a raised eyebrow.

Severus paused and contemplated his response. They were strangers, she couldn't possibly know them, and she didn't look particularly threatening.  
"Yes," he kept his voice curt, and deftly piled the cart's content on the cashier's desk.

"Yeah, I gathered," the redhead woman said, she had a thick Scottish accent that wasn't unusual in the area. Severus ignored the woman and eased Harry out of the cart, with the tinsels still wrapped around him.

"It's obvious you're new to this you know," the woman had the gall to say as Severus was coaxing the snow angels out of Harry's hands.  
Sev paused to glare at her. "Isn't everyone at first?"

The woman's smile annoyingly remained passed on her face as she checked the tags for the prices. "Oh well, that's true." She shrugged and drew out a plastic bag. "What I meant was, that you seemed so enamored with him, it's cute to watch," Severus's scowl deepened at her words.

Cute? He wasn't cute! Harry looked at Severus with the same indignant look on his face that the man was inwardly wearing. 'Really?' his face seemed to be saying. 'Is cute the word for it?'

She bagged the clothes and the cot and then looked at the baby with a toothy grin and pruned eyes. "And looks like your lad's started the holidays a bit early huh?" Severus drew back before she could reach and touch his face and then stared at her.

She stared back, undisturbed. "Shall I add the tinsels and the ornaments?"

"Yes," Severus said through gritted teeth and stared down at Potter. "We should get you off those so she can-"

"Oh there's no need!" the woman exclaimed, her voice chirpy with mirth. Although, Severus wasn't quite sure what was so mirthful about their situation. "Let him have them, I can ring up the prices just fine."

He nodded, his shoulders slumping as the woman hummed and clucked at Harry with that irritating baby voice that some adults did whilst talking to children. Severus ignored her and Harry, he was so tired.

He wanted to hand the baby to the woman, if only for a moment and then sprawl on the ground and just sleep. It was dark outside, they had no place to sleep for the night, Potter was going to get hungry soon, and Severus himself had been ignoring his own groaning stomach for two days now, in a measly attempt to save some more money.

He had to find a motel, find a store to buy other supplies for Harry, make sure the baby didn't get upset enough to blast the roof down, forge a new identity, and also find a way to make an income without giving his skills or his name away.

When it was time to pay, Severus sluggishly drew out half of the parchment money he had in his pockets and handed them to the woman, whose nametag read Mary.

Mary looked at the money with raised eyebrows, and only took two of the bills. "That'd be enough sir," she said with a soft smile that Severus abhorred but was too wrung out to complain about. "Here's the change." She handed him a few coins and a bill and slid the bags over with a small wave to Harry.

"Have a nice evening!" she said as they were leaving and Severus nodded. Harry actually managed to wave back twice with the snow angel tightly clenched in his fist before he stopped and gazed at it in wonder again.

Sev stepped out into the street with a deep breath and a glance over his shoulder.

Much much later, when he had remembered the incident, he noticed that she must have tricked him while receiving the money and had given the tinsels and the ornaments away for free. If she hadn't done so, Severus couldn't have bought Harry his other supplies.

If strangers, such as her, managed random acts of kindness such as this, then who was Severus to complain about getting to love and protecting this child who already means the world to him?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: _Major trigger warnings/Spoilers!_**

**Warnings for: extreme violence, unintentional homicide of four minors, explicit language, mutilation (only mentioned), bullying, and trauma.**  
**Prompt(s) used in this chapter:**  
**_someone calls Snape "Scrooge"**

* * *

**Chapter 4; Horrible Sanity**

_Plockton, Scotland, December the 3rd. -1989_

"Carefully Harry," Severus almost reached out to steady his son's hand. "Loosen your grasp. That's a very delicate plant, unlike its origami counterpart."

The nine-year-old adjusted his grasp. "Like this?"

Severus leaned closer to inspect the plant with narrowed eyes. He wasn't feeling all that great that morning, and he was uncharacteristically nervous too. This was the first time he and Harry went out unprotected. Usually, Severus had the necessary wards, or protective measures all figured out before he even thought about allowing Harry out of the house.

He was getting reckless, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"Yes," he finally nodded and straightened his back. "Hold it by the stem, these barely flower. This is certainly a rare sight."

They wouldn't have to stay long, Severus reasoned with himself. The chances of them, running into anyone were beyond slim. It was cold, and about to snow. It made for an ideal ingredient-gathering trip, but no sane Muggle would get out here by the river unless absolutely necessary.

They were fine. Sev breathed deeply.

'You're fine. Stop acting like an idiot.'

He adjusted his Occlumency shields and glanced over at Harry, who had his tongue out in concentration as he plucked one flower after the other. It made for an amusing sight and Sev couldn't help smirking. Before, he would have never guessed that parenting would be such a rewarding responsibility. His own parents certainly didn't see, to think of him as a reward, and Severus had taken it upon himself to look down at anyone who was foolish enough to bring a child into this world.

Well, he couldn't have been more wrong. His parents weren't right either. Parenting was one decision that Severus never regretted making. It was beyond rewarding, Harry wasn't just a part of his world, he was his world, and Severus couldn't imagine his life without the brat.

That's what parenting felt like.

Harry stood and stared at him. "Dad? Are you sure these are the ones?"

Severus shook his disgustingly sentimental thoughts away and rolled his eyes "Why would I lie to you about the plant's name?"

Harry pouted and then paused to dispatch his flowers on a nearby rock. "Because you're the one who turned my hair pink!" he huffed. "It's obvious you want it to stay."

Severus snorted. The brat had it coming with the pink hair, and Sev was more than glad to punish him for leaving his things around the house and underfoot. Severus's foot had been almost victim to Harry's Quidditch action figures laying around the floor.

The pink hair was a fit punishment. One that Harry severely hated and Severus immensely enjoyed.

"It brightens your face and you know it," he calmly said in reply. "It's merely parental suggestion Harry. The color suits you."

"Dad!" Harry's indignant flush was almost bright enough to match his hair. The boy's hands laid on top of his head as if to protect them against Severus's amused gaze.

"Yes, yes, fine." Sev knelt beside his son and examined the delicate yellow flower head. "These are spring buttercups, used in the antidote we're about to brew." He gave Harry a look. "Although I still strongly approve of that hair color."

"Really? Then why don't you turn your own hair pink?"

Severus huffed with mock indignation. "No thanks, I love my hair the way it is." Harry scoffed. "Glossy and enriched with color." Severus reached and ruffled Harry's hair with a face. "Yours is just a bird's nest," Harry squirmed and yelled, Sev continued with raised eyebrows. "The color might actually help keep the animals out of it."

Harry pushed a kneeling Severus sideways into frozen grass and laughed at Sev's put-out expression. This is what happens when your best friend is your son, Severus thought to himself with an inward sigh. As retaliation, he pushed himself back up and ruffled Harry's hair again, much to the boy's annoyance.

"Dad you're unbearable!"

"And your hair might just stay pink forever if you keep handling that flower like a rag doll! Show some delicacy child."

Harry sulked but obeyed nonetheless.

"Oh for Circe's sake,"

"What is it, Dad?"

Severus cursed under his breath and then pinched the tip of his nose, he looked uncharacteristically upset. "I forgot the vials back home. I cannot believe I forgot to take them. I always have them with me. Some potions master I'm supposed to be."

"Don't say that Dad. Come on…cannot you just rush back to the house? We're not that far, it'll take less than five minutes."

"We cannot carry them in our hands," Severus reluctantly admitted.

Harry's grin spread across his face. "Exactly, and I can stand watch," he innocently glanced down at the flowers. "Maybe extract a few more of these while you get back?"

Dad looked at him for a beat. "Are you going to be alright?"

"Yes Dad, it's going to be like five minutes, I can manage for that long."

"You're right, and I can find you fairly easily with that hair."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Now you're just being cruel about it."

Severus reached over and gave his hair a slight ruffle. "I won't be long at all, don't move, and stay out of trouble."

"I don't see how much trouble I can get into in five minutes." Harry batted the hands away. "Don't be weird about this Dad. You're making a big deal out of it."

"Alright, you brat." Severus gave him a fleeting one-armed hug. "Be careful with the stems." And then he was walking away, his pace quick and efficient and his coat billowing behind him with a dramatic whoosh. Harry stared at the man's back until he faded from view. Then he stood motionless for several moments before his shoulders sagged in amazement.

He was alone.

Harry looked around with wide eyes, ready to take in his surroundings without his father around, and found it very disappointing when the image didn't change much. The river was still half frozen, the pine trees were still standing tall, and the flower in his hands didn't perish in his dad's absence.

But he was alone, truly alone. Not only Dad was nowhere in sight, but he also had no way of watching over Harry, and Harry had no way of knowing what he was doing at the moment. An exhilarating thrill ran down his spine and Harry rolled on his heels with a grin.

He was alone.

He had no idea what to do with this new, fleeting sense of freedom that was quickly overcoming him. He felt a bit guilty for feeling relieved at once, it's not that he didn't enjoy his dad's company, he did, Dad was his best friend, but this was…this feeling was wild. Besides, Dad was going to come back in a few minutes anyway. Harry could let himself indulge in this feeling for that long.

He leaned down, with the grin still taxing the muscles in his face and dunked his free hand into the freezing river. He had no idea whether Dad would have allowed him to do that, had he been there, but he didn't particularly care. The cold water matched the exact replica of the excitement pooling in his stomach. So what if his fingers turned red and hurt a bit? He was doing it because he felt like it.

He breathlessly chuckled as he stood, a bit embarrassed by his own antics. Honestly, it wasn't as if he was a freed prisoner, Dad wasn't his jail keeper. He was just overly careful, that was all. Harry didn't mind his dad being with him all the time, he really didn't.

But maybe deep down, he did mind a little.

He would never let the thought ascend to the surface of his mind, would never let it linger for more than a beat, but it was there, sometimes, lurking in a dark corner of his mind. An annoyance that Harry was adept at stifling, just as he did with his anger.

'Don't let yourself linger on useless emotions Harry,' his dad always said. 'They'll chain you down in one spot. Don't let them stop you from moving, ever.'

His dad had a very strong opinion about Harry's anger issues.

As he crouched to pluck a few more buttercups when he heard chattering from the distance. Harry stood immediately, his eyes narrowing as he determined to distinguish the vague shapes getting closer from afar. There were three of them, loudly jeering and talking as they strolled in Harry's direction.

The nine-year-old tensed. He hadn't been in someone else's close vicinity in a while now. This was his first time ever encountering other people alone. Dad was always there, making sure that Harry didn't screw up. well, he wasn't there then, and Harry was all alone.

They looked to be close to his age, maybe only a few years older, maybe they were nice.

Harry nervously adjusted his hair, feeling his heart painfully beating against his ribcage as the teens closed in on him.

'Just be nice to them,' Harry told himself. 'Wish them a merry Christmas. Don't do anything freaky. They're normal people. They're not Dad, Harry.'  
Harry wrung the flowers in his hands and tried his best to look casual as the teens finally noticed him.

The tallest, brunette one noticed Harry first and elbowed the other boy. The third teen looked to be the youngest and strongly resembled the blond elbow guy. They were still a few feet away from Harry, and he self-consciously threw them a sideways glance.

Don't turn yet, he reminded himself and shakily exhaled. He really didn't want to screw this up.

"Look at that fancy boy over there Jake." The blond said.

Harry frowned. Was he talking slang? Harry didn't know whether the words were offensive or normal speech. He quickly wiped the expression from his face and decided to wait until the brown-haired boy responded.

"I know that guy," 'Jake' said. "He's the creep living out of town with that scrooge guy or something." They all were close enough to touch Harry now, and Jake roughly shouldered past him, almost sending Harry to his knees.

'He has a crappy sense of balance,' Harry thought with a smirk and straightened himself.

"Hello," he gave a timid wave. The boys jeered rather rudely and looked amongst themselves before staring back at Harry with mock bewilderment. Harry had already screwed this up, by the looks of it.

"Well would you look at that Mikey…" the third, younger boy turned to the Blond. "The freak talks too!"

The smile died on Harry's face. "Excuse me?"

Mikey snorted and the other boys sniggered, which Harry found ridiculously immature. Were these guys for real? He mentally shrugged at his own question and smoothed his expression to a slight frown.

The boys couldn't be older than fifteen years old and Dad did always mention that teenagers were dumb. Not that Harry would personally know, his interactions with people, especially muggles, in general, was very limited. Were all muggles this rude? He didn't know but decided to be nice about it anyway.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't understand." He said calmly. As calmly as he could manage. His father would have been proud.

They started circling him. "Don't overwhelm the weirdo with big boy words…" the boy, who looked about thirteen leaned into Harry's personal space.

"A little baby like him wouldn't get it."

"I'm sorry-"

"You should be," Mike cut in, bits of spittle flew out of his mouth and sprayed Harry on the face, and Harry grimaced, leaning away from the disgusting creature. "Look at his face." Mike snarled. "He looks worse than the dirt under my shoe."

Keep calm Harry. Keep calm. Don't disappoint Dad. Don't disappoint him.

Things were still in control. Harry knew that. He just needed to show these people the error of their ways, and maybe they wouldn't be as rude anymore. It was all a misunderstanding. It had to be. "That's really mean," Harry snapped back at the boys. "Why are you treating me like this? Have I done something to offend you?"

Jake and the youngest boy, Alex, towered over Harry's much shorter stature. "Yes you have," Jake roughly shoved Harry back against Mike's chest and Harry winced. He was acutely aware of how close they were to him, and he didn't like it. "You're alive. That's offensive enough for me. How about you Mike?"

Instead of Mike, Alex pounded his fist into his other hand with a nasty grin. "I say we teach this little shit a lesson."

"I don't want to get into any trouble," Harry held up both hands. "My Dad-."

"What? You gonna go tattle to your fucking scrooge-like a little crybaby?"

Alright, that wasn't fine.

They had no right to talk about his father that way. They had no right.

"Don't talk about my Dad like that."

"Oh!" Mike shoved him back to Jake, and the other boy did the same. "What you gonna do about it? Throw your flowers at us Nancy boy?"  
They were really getting on his nerves. "Stop it." Harry forcefully said. He didn't want to lose control, not in front of these people who already thought he was a freak.

"He's right Alex. Let's get this little shit a proper beating, his father probably should've done it sooner."

And then they were on Harry, savagely kicking and punching as the boy went down, the flowers forgotten, Harry cried out and blocked his head with both hands to hinder the hits. One of the boys had a stick that he was using to jab Harry in the back as the others took the front. Harry curled into himself, but the kicks made it to his stomach anyway, and it hurt so much that the air was knocked out of his lungs and Harry couldn't breathe.

He had never felt pain like this, insistent and dense, like a dull knife repeatedly jamming into his stomach. It hurt more than the sharp kind. Throbbed more than the swift longing pain that didn't last.

He yelled, he cursed, and he tried, oh how he tried to keep his temper under control.

Conceal it, Harry. He told himself through the pain. Control yourself. Don't let the monster win.

Dad is on his way.

Dad had to be on his way.

"Listen you shit!" The Jake boy said after a vicious kick to Harry's jaw. "This is what you get for being alive, you hear me?" Another kick, then a jab from the stick that ripped through his jacket.

"This is your fault. It's all your bloody fault."

Harry withstood Kingsley's horrified expression with ease. "That's the thing he became infamous for, isn't it?" he asked of the man instead. "Severus Snape, child abductor who stole the boy who lived, also terrorized and killed three muggle children, 1989, third of December, in Plockton. It was obvious who did it. The area reeked of his magic. The children were mutilated, unrecognizable. It could only have been the works of a monster."

Dad would applaud the amount of sarcasm dripping with his every word. "The monster that used to hang around the likes of Fenrir Greyback."

Kingsley shifted in his seat, he did that a lot more often than Harry was anticipating. He looked uncomfortable. Well, he should be. He was the reason Dad was in prison.

"But it only got worse, didn't it?" Harry viciously drawled every word. "Before you could get even a whiff of this atrocity, another one struck. A fifteen-year-old boy, one of the muggle's older brother was _also _murdered the same day near the river, and not found until two days after. This time, you were _sure _that it was Snape, even though you couldn't find any signs of him anywhere. But it must have been him right? Who else would have fit the profile as well as a soulless unhinged force of evil who could hold a grudge?"

"The way you speak implies that you don't think we were right,"

Harry scoffed. "Oh no, the tone of my voice is simply implying that you are a bunch of brainless idiots," He waved a hand and leaned back in his seat.

'That's the problem with most people Harry,'

'What is, Dad?' Thirteen years old him asked, still naïve, still an idiot.

'They're all a bunch of brainless idiots.'

"You heard how that story began," he said aloud. "You _think _you know how it ends, well, I suppose you might as well sit and listen to the middle."

"The boys assaulted you?"

Harry ignored the question. "Why do you think people demonstrate great acts of violence?" he swiftly reached in the file for another piece of parchment and idly started folding. He didn't care what was written on it about his father or himself. All lies…every single one of them, he was more than glad to turn those ugly words into something beautiful.

"What is in that act, what sort of emotional gratification does it give some people who carry them out?" Harry kept his head down on the paper even as he spoke. He knew what he was going to make.

When Shacklebolt didn't interrupt, Harry continued with a small shrug. "Well, I personally think it has got nothing to do with the violence itself." Then he looked up to stare the man in the eye. "It's always the intent."

"It's rarely because it feels good. Some say, that strong acts of violence require a strong sense of empathy, and others say that empathy has little to do with violence."

"I believe both. Voldemort had no empathy for my father when he shredded him to bits. He had less than that for my poor mother when she stood between us. He didn't need empathy to kill them and then attempt to kill an infant. All he needed was self-preservation and fear for his own life."

"Then you have people, like my father, who had no empathy for the muggle children who were found dead after beating the shit out of me, instead his empathy was turned on his own child, and the fear of what would happen to me had they caught us. He didn't mutilate those muggles because he liked to inflict violence. He did it so you _thought _he did."

He slid the paper flower over to Kingsley. "He did it because I killed those children."

"Can I put the angel on top? Please, Daddy! Please!"

"Alright, but you have to be careful. We spent hours on these decorations, it would be a shame if it got damaged." It was true, Harry and Severus had spent the entire morning- including breakfast time- to make the origami ornaments, not one of the ones used in the decoration was real. Severus had issued the challenge two days ago after coming back from the markets with two thick stacks of origami papers in his arms and Harry had gladly accepted.

They had made almost a hundred of those things, too many for their tree, but Harry was unstoppable, and Severus didn't have the heart to stop the boy once he was on the roll. Origami calmed him in a way that nothing else could, not even Severus himself had the power a piece of paper held before Harry.

"I can reach!" the child exclaimed loudly as he waved the paper angel in the air. Severus rolled his eyes at the child and adjusted a hanging blue paper ornament. This was the fifth time he had been forced to decorate the house for Christmas, and all of those times it had been for Harry's sake.  
Severus was never a holiday person himself, in fact, he rather he was caught dead rather than with anything festive near him. Obviously, children knocked personal preferences out of the park, and it wasn't too bad. No one would see Severus happy and smiling at Christmas but Harry, and who was Harry going to tell?

They lived in isolation.

"Of course not, silly. You're too short." Harry made a sound in protest, and Severus had to remind himself that the child was only five years old. Better not let this turn into a tantrum, he thought and quickly leaned down to scoop the boy in his arms.

"Alright, I'll hold you up. Be very careful not to touch the tree itself."

Harry giggled, wildly waving his arms and legs in the air. "I'm doing it!"

"You are," Severus nodded with a resigned frown. "Now, be careful there, don't kick your feet!"

The tree shook lightly as Harry's light kicks rustled the leaves, and Severus had to step back, in fear that the tree would topple or Harry's accidental magic made sure that it fell Harry protested the move with a whine and a wriggle. "But I'm flying Daddy!"

This time, Sev couldn't hide his rolling eyes. "We'll fly later," he promised. "Put the angel on top of the tree first."

Harry clumsily fixed the angel in his hand and strained to reach the top. Severus rose him higher and finally, the tree topper was in place. The child clapped and giggled and Severus had to smirk at his antics.

He carefully lowered Harry back to the ground.

"Can we have cookies for Santa, Daddy?"

"Cookies?" Severus didn't remember mentioning this to Harry.

The boy bounced his head and stared at the tree.

"He'll be hungry!" he exclaimed with wide eyes. "When he brings our presents!"

Severus thoughtfully hummed. Maybe he had mentioned it to Harry in passing, while they were talking the other day. He didn't recall Harry requesting cookies for Santa the year before. It was entirely new. What was worse though, Severus was quite sure that they didn't have any cookies left in the house, and it was too late to leave Harry alone by himself to go get some more.

"Well, I'm sure he would get some refreshments from the other houses," he picked Harry and brought him to the couch. "He'll visit so many houses that he would be quite full by the time he reaches us. We don't want to make him sick now do we?"

Harry looked genuinely disgruntled. "But," he bit his lip. "He will be sad."

"Oh Harry," Severus couldn't help but say. While this was a precious demonstration, and Severus found it endearing, he couldn't help but fear that this might turn into a heated tantrum. His son was a toddler, and toddlers cried over nothing. Now when other children cried over nothing, no one got hurt…the same couldn't be said about his son. His incredibly selfless, sensitive son.

"And then he's gonna-." Harry sniffed. "He's gonna forget our presents!"

"No, he's not." Severus drawled. Children's sense of logic was ridiculous sometimes. He hugged Harry to his chest. "I'm so sorry Harry, but I forgot to buy cookies," Harry gasped and Severus sighed. "I'm sorry." He said again.

"Cannot you go now?"

Severus followed Harry's eyes to the window and then winced. "It's too dark already, I'm sorry." He put his chin on Harry's head. "I'm sure Santa wouldn't mind. We'll leave him a note, how about that?"

Harry drew away to look at him. "With cookies?"

"Not the cookies, no." Severus tried to remind himself that Harry was only five. Children weren't often rational enough to be convinced the first time. Severus probably had to explain this all night, and even during story time before Harry slept. "But maybe you could draw him some? I'm sure he would like that more than the real deal."

Harry hummed. "But he cannot eat that!"

Severus pursed his lips. He didn't mind being patient with Harry. "How about you make him origami cookies?" he sounded gentler. "We haven't learned how to make those yet, and I'm sure he'll find it very funny." He slid Harry off his lap and onto the couch. "We can leave them out with real milk, and maybe some carrots."

Tentatively, his son slipped off the couch and trailed after him. "He won't be mad?" he asked quietly.

Severus shook his head. "Not at all, I promise on his behalf."

"Are you and Santa friends, Daddy?"

Sev saw the opportunity and gripped it with both hands. A friendship with Santa could prove vital for later use when he wanted Harry to listen to him without throwing a fuss.

"Oh yes," he told the small child with a bit of guilt tinging his voice. "We have met a few times."

Harry gasped in wonder, almost running into Severus in his excitement. "You know Santa!" he hugged Severus's legs from behind. "Daddy knows Santa!"

"I sure do," Severus was already regretting this.

"Santa's your friend Daddy! You're cool!"

"Wait," Severus stopped walking and peered down at the grinning boy. "I wasn't cool before?"

Harry contemplated the question. "You're always cool," he decided and patted Sev on the leg twice before letting go, a habit that had stuck with him since infancy.

"I really am?"

The child nodded. "You're the coolest."

Severus didn't register the scene before him immediately. He had been as fast as he could without running, rushing back to the house for the forgotten vials and his wand, and then ran out of his house without locking the door, which forced him to turn again, and charm it closed while he swore under his breath.

Harry would have been fine, he thought he knew that, logically. The bridge was deserted, and Severus-despite the slight delay- wouldn't have been gone for too long. Harry should have been fine. He should have been.

The scene before his eyes told a different story. The vials fell to the ground as Sev's legs tumbled into a run. Harry sat on the frozen ground, on his knees, his face bruised and bloodied, almost beyond recognition, eerily similar to James Potter's face minutes before dying. Around him laid three other children on their backs with their eyes open and void of life.

They were dead.

Severus numbly reached Harry's side, crashing next to him with a force that almost reoriented his kneecaps. Harry was panting, his eyes glazed and staring ahead as if he couldn't really see Severus staring at him in horror.

He closed his hands on Harry's shoulders and moved until he was right in front of him. he examined his son's face. He couldn't have done it on purpose, he couldn't have. He was injured, have taken a nasty beating by the looks of things. It was an accident. It looked like an accident.

"Harry," he gently shook the child's shoulders, but Harry was gone. He looked to be miles away. "Harry, look at me, come on now," Severus was afraid of jostling him too much, one wrong move and he might end up next to the dead muggles, and who would take care of Harry then?

With great caution, Sev hesitantly brushed Harry's blood matted hair away from his face and repeated himself, patiently, painstakingly waiting for some light to come back to Harry's eyes.

"I didn't mean to-" Harry heaved a choked sob, "I didn't mean…they just-."

"You didn't mean it, I know. It's okay. It's all right, look at me, Harry,"

"They're…they're not moving-they were-hitting me-I cried- and I told them to stop-I told them to stop Daddy, and-and-and-."

"Shh, just breathe, it's alright. It was an accident, I know." They couldn't remain there. Three muggles were dead, they had hurt his son and now they were dead. In Severus's eyes, it was not too much a price to pay, Sev himself probably would have killed them had he witnessed the beating…but in the Ministry's eyes, things were different.

They would arrest his son, regardless of his status they would throw him in Azkaban. His nine-year-old son.

Not just his…James and Lily's too.

"Don't touch me."

Severus blinked. "What?"

"Don't touch me! You'll die! Go away!"

Severus endured the weakened punches with a frown and held Harry tighter to his chest. Harry's palms against his chest were uncomfortably heated, and Severus was resigned to the fact that they would most likely burn through his clothes. "No I won't go away," he hushed the thrashing boy. "Calm down Harry, shh."

"They were hurting me," Harry gasped.

"I know," he knew, oh merlin, he knew. It was his fault. All, his fault. They wouldn't have dared raise a hand on his son if Severus had been there.  
"I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't mean it Daddy, I didn't mean it!"

"I know, you need to calm down, we need to get out of here."

The air stilled around them, and Harry's magic poured out of him in agitated ripples, disturbing the plants and the bodies with a wild wind. His child looked terrified. "Are you mad?" he breathlessly asked. Sev shook his head, slowly and Harry whimpered. "Daddy I'm scared."

"No I'm not mad," he was terrified. "I'm never mad, alright? But we need to move, now Harry. They cannot find us like this."

"Their moms and dads…" Harry's eyes went disturbingly wide. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry! I just wanted to play, but they were hitting me, and it hurt! I tried not to get angry, but they were hitting too hard! And saying mean things about you! I'm sorry." Severus realized that the child was just repeating himself in nonsensical babbling; he must be in shock.

Severus couldn't handle a shocked, injured Harry and three bodies. He didn't even have time to dispose of those three bodies without leaving a trace. He had to take Harry back to their house, pack what they could and run.

This was his fault, Severus realized. His recklessness had killed three children and traumatized his highly volatile son. Just one little slip, and now…Severus shook his head. He didn't have the time to scold himself. He needed to think, he needed to move.

"Harry, you were very brave," he drew back from his shaking son. "Look at me, look at me now…" subtly, he snuck a hand in his robes to retrieve his wand. "I need you to do one more thing for me alright?" Harry stared up at him, dazed and shaking. Severus repeated himself a few times and adjusted his grip on the wand. He needed Harry out of the way to take care of the corpses. "One thing and this will all be over."

Harry stuttered and then trailed off before gazing at Severus with a wild desperate look in his eyes. "You can heal them?"

Severus gently tugged him back into his arms. The less Harry saw of the gore and violence left in the scene, the better. "No baby, they're gone."

Harry burst into tears, loud ugly sobs tore themselves out of his mouth, carrying with them the child's loss of innocence. Severus wanted to seat there and hold him for hours, for days and mourn the loss of innocence with him, but there was no time.

There just wasn't any time.

"Listen to me," he kissed Harry's head and brushed his hair away. "Just one last thing…" his pleading grasped Harry's waning attention. The boy sniffed and looked up at him. "I need you to sleep," Sev muttered.

"What?"

Severus tapped his wand to his son's temple and murmured, "_ Somnium _."

"I cannot remember anything beyond that, the rest, he told me afterward. When I woke up, I looked fine, I wasn't injured any more, my hair was back to its original color, and it was still December. I think I was asleep for a few days, our house wasn't the same, I don't even think we were in England anymore."

"He didn't let you go out?"

"I didn't want to go out, Shacklebolt." Harry snapped. What an imbecile, he thought with an internal sneer.

It was beyond Harry, how they had maintained their jobs this long with this level of limited intelligence.

"I had killed four muggles at the age of nine." He stated the obvious through his gritting teeth. "I was bloody traumatized. It took Dad months, almost a full year to make me somewhat functional again, took him weeks for me to let him come near me…then the snow fight happened, and we had to move, again."

The table was almost littered with little origami pieces, mostly flowers, and Shacklebolt's file was increasingly getting thinner. Harry realized, with slight amusement, that the Auror might have to call in for some extra parchment. "I know that you still don't believe me," he told the man. "But you should."

"This doesn't explain Murphy Lynton's death." Kingsley didn't even bother masking the skepticism on his face. "Mike Lynton's brother."

"I can assure you that his death was still my fault, Shacklebolt." Harry sighed. "I couldn't believe it at first either, I hated myself for it, but Dad…the way he explained it all to me, didn't make it seem as if I was some monster. It was just an accident."

Harry swallowed, and desperately wished that he had a glass of water nearby. He stretched the silence as long as he could and then cleared his throat, deciding that the water wasn't worth it, and he couldn't beat around the bush any longer. "Murphy Lynton died the same time his brother did," he admitted. "Dad found his body hiding under the bushes as he was carrying me back." Harry couldn't prevent a sneer from creeping onto his face.

Mikey liked to hit, and Murphy liked to watch.

"There just wasn't any time for cleanup, and you were going to assume it was him anyway…" it made him sick in the stomach...thinking about those wretched people…thinking about his dad, all alone and desperate and not knowing what to do. "That's why he mutilated the children. My trace was almost non-existent."

"Don't you believe that they deserved justice?"

What sort of logic was that? Harry thought with a frown. He was nine years old, a child in the law's eyes. And it was an accident. He knew that now. He never meant to kill people for justice.

What did nine-year-olds know of justice anyway?

"I don't believe any justice to be warranted for people who beat up a nine-year-old, Auror Shacklebolt."

The Auror furrowed his brows. "They didn't deserve death."

Harry spread his hands. "I agree," he hummed. "And my Dad didn't deserve to take the blame for it. But here we are, with those teenagers dead and my father in a cell."

"I just have too much power for my own good…Blame it on whomever you like. It cannot be helped," it wasn't as if the power thrilled Harry himself all that much. "And Dad was the only thing that kept me together, and whole and sane."

His absence was glaringly obvious in his stature now. Harry knew that at some point origami and mental insults weren't going to cut it anymore. He needed his father. He needed Dad, telling him to calm down, looking him in the eye and breathing in sync with Harry just like when he was a child. He wanted to be in Norway, with Dad, in their plain where it was just the two of them and nothing else. No one else.

"Sometimes, when the anger management methods didn't work, he took me to this place…in Norway." Harry wasn't sure he should be enclosing that bit of information, but the rest of the story made no sense without it. Dad would forgive him for it, eventually.

'If he survives this.' The voice in Harry's head hissed. 'If he survives another one of your screw-ups.

Harry ignored the voice.

"A beautiful plain, and unhabituated, fortunately for us. It was our safe place. He jokingly called it our 'hiding spot'. We were always playing hide and seek."

They were still playing. Dad had always told him that they never stopped playing.

'But what if they find us Daddy?' he had asked as a clueless child. 'Don't we lose then?'

'You and I never lose Harry,' Dad had said. 'You and I are the winning team, together.'

Olly Olly oxen free, Dad.

"Norway," Kingsley repeated in disbelief.

"Yes," Harry couldn't resist rolling his eyes any longer. "It's a breathtaking place. We've only been there a few times, the last time being…" he suddenly cut himself off with a snap and gazed up at the Auror.

"Before I tell you about that," Harry pursed his lips, his eyes hooded. "You need to know about the 3rd of March."

Shacklebolt quickly dipped his quill in the inkwell, ready to write. "Which year?"

Harry smirked. "Every year."

* * *

**A/N: The chapter's title is derived from a quote in Edgar Allen Poe's letter to George W. Eveleth:**

**"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Warning(s) for: explicit language**

* * *

**Chapter 5; Ollie Ollie Oxen Free**

"You weren't the first people to discover us," Harry was saying. "Dad was so careful about these things, all the time. Right under my nose too," he shook his head. "For nearly half of my childhood, I had no idea that we were the ones running away,"

"It wasn't that Dad was particularly good at hiding it," the desk was clattered with numerous pieces of artwork, whereas once it looked blank and threateningly interrogative. "He was just too good at running away. He was an expert at it. I wasn't allowed to talk to others or interact with them in any way, I was more than glad not to, after killing off a bunch of them. That certainly made things easier. If I didn't talk then I couldn't screw things up. He got us new identities every time, a new life, he even changed the cars we pretended to own as we ran away."

"Methodical," Harry ignored the man's dry, sardonic tone. He was good at ignoring other people.

"The person who found us…was not human. I don't think that he was. Dad almost never mentioned him, I've only seen him twice, heard him speak once. I know that he isn't a big fan of you guys either,"

"Do you remember his name?"

"Yes, he introduced himself to me a while after our first meeting. He had a deal…going on with Dad. I saw Dad throwing out his deliveries every Christmas, all the time. He told me they were from 'Santa's only enemy'," Harry rolled his eyes.

Kingsley cocked an eyebrow as well. "Did he introduce himself to you as Santa's only enemy?"

"No, just a surname. Lupin. That was his name. Lupin."

"Remus Lupin?" Kingsley looked far more flabbergasted than Harry was expecting. So much so, that Harry suspected that the man personally knew Lupin himself.

"Yes, him," Harry said. "I've only met him twice." And the last time ended up with him and Dad being found out, so Harry wasn't exactly fond of Santa's sole nemesis.

"Did you get to speak with him?"

"No," Harry lied, quite easily. The word just rolled off his tongue. "Dad handled both interactions. He's good at intimidating people."  
An innate talent that Harry had hoped that he had inherited but was greatly disappointed when he found out that Dad wasn't his biological father and more like the man who had abducted him.

"Well, he was a Death Eater,"

"He was more than that," Harry snapped back. He hated how Shacklebolt kept circling back to the fact that his father had a tattoo on his forearm. It was ages ago, Dad almost didn't remember its presence half the time. They had a whole other life apart from this madness. The most he had to worry about were origami papers and his potions, and occasionally about running away. his death eaters days were all a blur. Or so, Harry was told.

"There was no room for mistake, not a single incident to get out of his grasp. The kindergarten was obviously a mistake so he Obliviated the whole place, leaving the muggles' bodies behind was a mistake, but he mutilated them beyond recognition. He was a death eater for a reason."

"Are you proud that he is a Death Eater?"

"He's not proud of it," Harry took a deep breath. 'Don't you snap now, not now' he told himself and opened his eyes. "I'm not spouting about good and bad," he said in a chiding tone. "I'm talking about survival. That man saved my life,"

"From what? That's what we don't understand." Kingsley set his quill down. "There is absolutely no threats to your life Mr. Potter,"

Harry raised an eyebrow at the pitying look in the man's eyes. He knew exactly what he must have been thinking. 'Poor little orphan boy lied to and traumatized beyond help,'

"I'm being held in an interrogation cell as a minor while my father is in prison," he snapped. "Don't let my calm demeanor assuage you, sir, I feel very unsafe in this environment."

"My father," he swallowed. "My _biological _father begged the man he could barely tolerate to take me and run for our lives with his last dying breath. I never questioned their motives because they were right. You don't understand this," he nodded to himself with his chin, his eyes bearing a hint of desperation. "You haven't seen what I can do, but I have. My dad, he wasn't entirely worried about you hurting me, he was worried about you taking advantage of this _thing _that I have. He was worried, that once you saw what I could do, you would…"

"Do what?"

Harry scowled. "Let my Dad go if you want to find out."

"He's a convict Death eater."

These bloody people, with their bloody names and titles. Harry gritted his teeth and wondered at the utter stupidity of a man twice the size of him. "He's a spy caught in crossfire," Harry growled. "Every single crime committed after Voldemort's fall had been on my account. Every child you think he's killed, I have, every harm inflicted on muggles you've thought he's responsible for has been on my account. Every. Single. One of them."

It took him a single beat to notice that the bookshelves were shaking, and the curtains rustling with a breeze that couldn't possibly be occurring indoors. He sat back, gulped and wrung his hands. He promised himself. This wasn't going to be easy, but Harry knew better. Dad had taught him better than getting mad at trivial stuff like this.

"March the Third." He nodded to himself. That was what he wanted to talk about in the first place. Just state the facts and then hope for the best and if the best wasn't enough…well, Harry would think of something then. "Dad…he took us, to Norway, every year, since I was six. He said…uh, he said that all of this pent up magic is doing more harm than good, and I wasn't exactly a saint…he had to find a way to deal with my temper tantrums without destroying and killing anyone."

Which didn't end nicely for those muggle boys he's killed, not at all. Harry had insisted the visits to be more frequent after that incident, in fact, at one point, he was begging his father to take him there and leave him behind. He couldn't hurt anyone in utter isolation. Dad, of course, flat out refused even to consider Harry's offer.

"Every March, we packed our bags and went 'camping'" Dad loved his code names. "I don't know where beyond the fact that we were in Norway. It was a lovely plain, surrounded by endless rows of mountains, and not a single soul would have known about us."

"What was so significant about March the third?"

"There wasn't a shred of significance about that was just the day that I had been pushed too far. I don't even remember why, but I had a temper tantrum of some sort…And Dad just scooped me up and went to the first unhabituated place he could think of."

'Let go?' Harry had squeaked. His face red and tracked with dried tears. This would help, Dad had said. They were alone now. Harry could be mad. He already had a headache thinking about the damage he was going to cause, and he was absolutely terrified of hurting his dad. He was standing too close, almost in reach. Harry held on to the imaginary leash in his head and yanked it further back.

'Yes, Harry just let go,' Said Dad.

Little Harry hugged himself and looked around the wide plain. 'But you said…'

'I know what I said,' Dad was trying his best not to look irritated. 'But I'm also saying that you are allowed to let go now, let the monster out.'

Harry couldn't understand the phrase, or what monster his father was talking about. Harry and his magic were the same, at least, Harry thought that they were the same. He gently prodded the volatile waves and screwed his eyes shut as it rippled in response, wild and thrashing.

'Daddy I'm scared!' there was a strong wind blowing, running through his hair and drowning out Dad's voice in the distance. Harry shrank away from it, away from himself. This was wrong. He knew it was wrong. He could hurt people. Burn Dad again. He didn't want Dad to get hurt.

'Harry! Harry! It's alright.'

"It was alright," Harry shrugged almost in sync with his father's voice in his head. "He said that doing it was the healthiest approach we could have taken. He said that…restricting my powers would make the monst-." Harry caught himself just on time, cleared his throat and continued. "Me, more dangerous, something about an Obsucurus?"

Kingsley hummed. "And you released your magic every year on that date?"

"Yes," Harry ignored the cruel twist in his stomach. "With a single exception." He hated remembering that day. He abhorred himself the most when he thought of how he almost killed Dad because of that stupid, stupid mistake.

'I hate you!' he had cried. Naïvely, stupidly, shouted those words at his dad, hurled them at him with every bit of hatred in him.

Dad had barely flinched. He knew Harry enough to know that Harry mustn't have meant those words. But he did. Harry meant every single word. He believed in them then, in the heat of the moment.

'Harry wait,' he was swiftly trailing Harry as the boy hopped from place to place in sudden bursts of uncontrolled apparation. This could gravely injure Harry, he could splinch himself, or worse. In Harry's eyes, Dad was like a shadow, something swimming in his vision as Harry appeared from place to place. Something unreal, just like the monster Severus always insisted that resided in Harry's soul.

'YOU LIED!' he was irrational with rage. 'You ALWAYS lie!' another sharp snap and Harry was panting on the other side of the plain, at the very edge of the valley that led to the rock bottom. He couldn't bear the thought of his father getting close to him. He hated that man. He _hated _him.

Severus easily changed his course and started approaching him, his face a perfect mask of serenity mostly for Harry's sake. 'Calm down, let's talk-.'  
'Talk!?' Harry screamed, out of pure frustration. Dad wasn't getting it. He didn't understand how unbelievably ANGRY Harry was at that moment, how easily he could shove Dad off the cliff with a single nudge of his hand. He didn't understand. "No! I don't want to talk! You lied to me!" Harry was an idiot.

Dad stood, and just stared at him, and Harry didn't see the look in his eyes. Not really.

He just took the silence as confirmation. 'You're not even denying it!" he yelled. "You're not even my real DAD!'

'Harry, NO!'

"The last time we went there…" Harry winced at himself. "I almost killed him."

A hand shoved at his side. "Daddy?" the little voice whispered, and Severus groaned. He rolled away, yanking on his sheets. It was too early for this.  
The little body followed the blankets and hastily crawled to the other side of the bed to face the sleeping man once again. He gently poked Severus in the eye. Sev expertly reached out and grabbed the hand before he could be poked again.

"Hm?" he grunted with closed eyes. If he was tired enough that he couldn't bear opening his eyes, then surely it was too early for him to be dealing with Harry.

Ten more minutes, he groggily promised himself. If the boy hadn't tired himself out in ten minutes, then Severus would get up.

Harry's other hand wriggled in Severus's hand and patted him on the cheek twice. "Wake up." the boy murmured, his hand radiating heat where it was pressed against Sev's cheek. He snuggled deeper in his covers. The bedroom was unusually cold, now that he really thought about it.

Another pat came and Sev knew that Harry's face was inches from his. He could actually feel Harry's eyes burning through his closed lids. Oh, for the love of God, he thought and sighed.

"Harry?" he croaked.

The child hummed. "Daddy wake up." his small fingers poked Sev's face all the way to his mouth until his fingers pulled the sides of Severus's mouth upwards. Sev batted the hand away and finally willed his eyes to peel open.

He pushed the small boy off his chest. Harry willingly cuddled Sev's shirt. "Don't put your hand in my mouth Har-." Severus paused at Harry's loud snort. He pruned his nose and closed his eyes. "Merlin, did you just wipe your nose on my shirt?"

Harry meaningfully paused with a loud sniffle, then looked up at Severus with wide eyes. "…No."

"You did," Severus rolled his eyes and grimaced at his damp shirt. Children were gross. He let the apathetic voice whisper in his head and he rolled his eyes at it. Gross or not, he wanted to sleep.

He pulled Harry back down with him. "Come on, go to sleep again." it wasn't even light out, and Harry was already up and about. He usually didn't exercise early rising habits with the child, in fact, Harry was worse than Severus himself when it came to getting out of bed in the morning. This morning was an oddity.

Harry wriggled in his arms with a pout. "No Daddy!" he sounded shrill with indignation. "We have so many things to do!" his body was much warmer than Severus's himself, and that made him pause. Had he left a window open or something? He was unreasonably cold compared to his son. Harry reached his arm to wipe his nose as if to confirm his thoughts.

"No we don't have anything other than sleep." he pulled the covers over them. "Sleep. And stop wiping your nose with your arm-." he frowned. "Wait, why do you have a runny nose?"

Maybe he wasn't cold, and Harry was unusually warm. Suddenly, Severus was much more awake and sitting up. He pulled Harry up on his lap and stared at him.

His hand pushed the boy's fringe out of his eyes and settled on his forehead. "Are you sick?" he muttered and then swore. Sick was a nice way of putting it. Harry was burning up. He pushed himself off the bed in an instant and scooped Harry by his elbows.  
"No!" the child miserably complained.

"Yes you are," Severus held him to his hip. He needed a fever-reducing potion immediately. He did have a few vials left from his last order lying around in his lab. And then maybe a Pepper-up too, or a dreamless sleeping potion so Harry could sleep this off. Harold didn't get sick often, rarely at all. Severus could count the times he had been sick on one hand, and none where it came close to Harry having a fever.

"You're a bit hot." He explained to the sniffing child. Would his sickness have magical ramifications? Severus honestly didn't know. It hadn't happened before, but then again, Harry had never had a fever before. Maybe he should get his son out of the house, get him somewhere isolated enough that a magical outburst wouldn't cause any harm.

"No I'm not!" even as he whined, Harry coddled his warm face against the crook of Severus' neck and whimpered.

"Yes you are," Severus muttered, and opened his bedroom door. "Let's get you back in bed."

He flicked his wand at the fireplace and it was gently set ablaze, creaking and crackling upon the cooled logs. Severus needed to restock those this afternoon.

"But no!"

"Harry stop it." his chiding went almost unheard under Harry's uncharacteristic fussing. He has a fever, Severus told himself. Of course, he was going to be difficult. "You're just a little sick," he soothed a hand over Harry's hair. "You'll be fine with a bit of rest. I just don't understand how you caught this… We haven't left the house in weeks."

Harry pushed himself off Sev's chest and stared at him. "If I go to sleep, we cannot play anymore!"

Rolling his eyes, Sev reached for Harry's door. "We'll play later."

"It won't snow later Daddy!"

Sev's mind went completely blank. "Snow?"

Harry nodded and Severus, with a deep sinking in his stomach, threw Harry's door open.

Oh.

Snow.

It was covering every inch of his son's room, a thick firm layer that must have started piling since the night before while Harry was sleeping. That's how he's sick, Sev thought, stifling the urge to facepalm, he made it snow, and then slept in it, waited and counted off the minutes until he could crawl into Sev's bed to wake him so they could 'play'.

"Oh bollocks." He rubbed a hand down his face. He was too old for this.

"Bollocks!" Harry cheerfully chirped, startling the frustrated man who stared down at him with a soft scowl.

"What, no," he snapped, unintentionally harsh. "Don't say that again."

"Why not?"

Severus huffed and drew out his wand. He needed to deal with all this snow. "It's a bad word. Daddy shouldn't have used it either, I'm sorry."

"Bollocks," Harry muttered the word under his breath in awe, completely unheeding to Severus's withering glare. Great, he thought, now he had to find a way to drop that word off Harry's mouth.

"Oh delightful," Severus rolled his eyes, then he just stood there and glanced around the child's room in dismay. "How did you-"He cut himself off. "No, wait, wrong question, why did you make it snow Harry?"

"Because-," the boy loudly sniffed. "You were sad last night when the bad man came."

"You were supposed to be asleep Harry," Severus, in no uncertain terms wanted his son to remember the brief interaction with Lupin. The visit had taken many hours after midnight, had taken less than half an hour, Harry couldn't have possibly been awake.

"But I wasn't," Harry insisted and Severus carried him to his bed, banished the pile of glittering snow and cast a warming charm. "He knocked on our door and then I got up,"

He laid the boy down in his bed. "Well, you should have been sleeping," Severus insisted, checking Harry's temperature, this time with his wand.  
"But he was making you sad!"

"And you decided to make it snow?"

Harry shrugged with a snuffle. "You like snow Daddy."

Sev's face softened and he leaned back against the bed's small headboard. "I suppose you're right," he said. "Did you hear the bad man and Daddy talk?" he couldn't have, Severus had a silencing charm up the entirety of last night, but with Harry, one simply couldn't know. The boy could've easily thrown the charm off without Severus being the wiser.

"No Daddy, but his mouth moved a lot."

Severus shook his head. "Well, he's gone now."

"But you cannot eavesdrop on Daddy again, alright?"

He reached for the box of tissues on the child's nightstand and shook the snow off before offering it to the boy.

"I didn't like him, Daddy," Harry said. "Is he coming again?"

"No, never again," Severus muttered. "Don't think about him, or we'll lose the game, alright?"

Those were the magic words for Harry. As soon as Severus mentioned 'We might lose the game', his son's eyes would go wide, and then he would nod as he was doing now, then he would snuggle into Severus's arms and say;

"Alright, Daddy."

"This looks unbelievable." A plump purple-clad wizard gasped at Kingsley, his eyes almost bulging in their sockets as he stared at the two way charmed mirror that Potter didn't know existed in the interrogation office. Harry could only see the bookshelves from his side, whilst Ministry officials stood in the other office, peering through the charmed mirror.

"Tell me about it, Warren." Said Kingsley as he rubbed a hand over his face. Potter was left by himself in the office, making odd shapes out of file parchments and making a few float around his head. "I had him analyzed by the mind healers, and he's not wrong in the head," he scratched his chin. "Or traumatized by his time with the guy, he's not under any influential spells, no Unforgiveable curses-"

Warren cut him off with a snort. "He doesn't look fine to me, Shacklebolt. The boy had transformed that entire office into a kids' birthday party."  
Shacklebolt exhaled through his nose. "Yes, he seems to have…certain quirks."

Warren raised an eyebrow as he waited for his colleague to elaborate. "He acts as if his name isn't Harry Potter," Kingsley started. "He claims his birthday is March the third, and not July 31th, he seems to have trouble looking at me while speaking-."

"Did he seem timid?" Michael interjected. "Signs of abuse?"

"No, oddly enough." They both turned to stare at Harry. "He looked as if he was doing me a favor by 'containing' himself. He seems very prone to anger, or I'm just frustrating him."

"That's messed up, but were you expecting anything less than a boy raised by that scum Snape?"

Shacklebolt hesitated, looking at Warren as awkwardness coiled in his stomach. Potter's depiction of Snape wasn't one that was widely known about the notorious man, in fact, Potter had genuinely seemed to believe that Snape was a model father, while Shacklebolt knew well that most victims of long-term abuse made such suggestions out of sympathy all the time.

And the murders? Merlin, the murders. The Auror winced. He was still waiting on the head of Magical child Care and Family support to stamp the approval for the usage of Veritaserum on Potter to confirm his confession. Deep down, Kingsley knew that he didn't even need the Veritaserum, hadn't it been for a formal procedure.

The haunted look in Potter's eyes as he confessed was enough to make him believe that the child had done it.

It wasn't as if it was the first time a magical child had severely harmed muggle children with accidental magic. Albus Dumbledore's younger sister was a similiar case after her own harassment before she had died. In fact, the incident was so jarring that the Auror responsible for the case had outright quit and the poor girl had never been the same before her death. Kingsley had heard the stories, about unstable magical outbursts, regressed mental capacity, how her mother had died in an explosion caused by one of those outbursts. It was heartbreaking really, and to think, that Snape had supposedly lived with that for fifteen years and survived. Potter didn't seem regressed, or unstable, but Kingsley would not really go as far as comparing him to a healthy magical child.

Something about this case, about how vividly Potter depicted the muggle boys harassing him bothered him.

And Snape's actions afterward proved that the man wasn't all that he had been cracked up to be. Kingsley seldom knew of any parent who would mutilate dead bodies to stave off suspicion from their ward. Not many people, Arthur and Molly Weasley, maybe one of the very few, but not many people that Shacklebolt knew would do such a thing, even for their own child. Much less a child they have abducted for revenge.

"You alright there mate?"

"Yeah," Kingsley rubbed his neck. "Just a bit tired."

"We can switch places," the other man offered with a bit of curiosity bleeding into his voice. "I could take a go at cracking the boy who lived."  
"No, no, it's fine." He had promised Potter that he would stay and listen until the end. "Just ask a fellow to bring us some food when I go back in, the boy looks famished." Although he doubted that Potter would trust anything enough to consume it while he was under arrest. He pointedly hadn't touched his tea and then exploded the blasted thing into smithereens.

"Make sure it's wrapped, unopened. He thinks the food is contaminated."

"He does realize that we could easily charm any potions directly into his food without him knowing, doesn't he?"

"I don't think he knows, no." Potter seemed not to know that much about the magical world at all. Kingsley couldn't tell if it was a deliberate move on Snape's side, or merely a coincidence.

"Do you think it's true? His ranting about Snape's treatment of him? Because I'll be honest mate, it all sounds like obsessive dragon dung to me. You should have him checked by the healers again."

"Maybe."

Warren didn't seem to detect Shacklebolt's distracted tone. "Snape and storytimes I mean really, are we talking about the same man who tortured a woman into insanity with a manic potion? A Potion of his own creation? Please…he's delusional, crazy even, if you're asking me."

"Well I'm not Warren," Kingsley suddenly growled. "Mind your own damn division."

"Hey! It's not my fault Potter's gone coo-coo in the head! You should watch out for your own neck while you're alone in a room with him, remember Ariana Dumbledore? Poor Smith, he was never the same after her."

"They're not similar."

"Yes, they are. Magical disturbance at a young age, both assaulted as children, unsteady magical levels, unstable emotional state.., you don't have to tell me these Kingsley, I'm head of the Magical Disturbance Department for a reason you know."

"Yes, you did your homework, well done Warren."

"I think you should let me have a go at him."

"Pardon me?"

"Aside from the mind healers," the man shrugged. "I've studied this nearly half my life, and I'd admit, he seems fascinating, from a psychological standpoint. We don't get cases like his often."

"No thanks," Kingsley was hating this conversation more by the minute. "I'll stick to it myself." It wasn't even that he found Warren particularly irritating, but he felt as if there was a toothpick lodged into his head, tingling at an amiss piece. Either Potter wasn't giving all of the information out front, or he was and Kingsley was absolutely missing it.

The nagging feeling only sank deeper when Potter's tale got more gruesome, it probed at his head as the boy intently avoided his gaze, glared at his wand, or asked for more parchment. Shacklebolt was missing something, something that Potter clearly wasn't capable of saying out loud. Especially with the recording charm in place, Kingsley thought.

"Whatever stirs your potion Shacklebolt." Warren was saying. His voice was loud enough to snap Kingsley out of his stupor. "He's gonna end up in our department after Snape's prosecution anyway."

"Wait, isn't he going to the Magical child care and family support? He would be considered an orphan, eligible for adoption…as any other magical child." As far as he knew anyway. He didn't get to handle cases involving children often. Potter's case was obviously different, more sensitive. It was sensitive enough that the Minister himself didn't see it fit to let it pass from the Auror's department.

Warren shrugged his shoulders, annoyingly chipper. "Problem is, he is not any other magical child." He pointed out. "Who's gonna adopt the boy who lived?" Kingsley frowned at the man as he continued. Warren caught his frown and narrowed his eyes, leaning closer to whisper as if afraid others would eavesdrop on the conversation. Even though they were standing in an empty hallway.

"I've heard from the big boys up in Fudge's arse that they're going to keep him in the ministry's custody for a while." He said. His voice was hushed.  
"It is what Potter had agreed to after all." Warren snorted. "'His father's freedom, in exchange for his 'services'" he made air quotes with his chubby fingers. "Merlin," he blew a breath with raised eyebrows.

"Now that's some messed up shit."

"Whatever,"

The door opened behind them and a young woman almost went headfirst to the ground. Tonks caught herself by the door's handle and then grinned at him.  
"Shacklebolt!" she carelessly waved with a gleaming vial in her hand as she peeled herself from the door.

Kingsley's mouth twitched. "Auror Tonks,"

Tonks flushed, and the tips of her hair sprang into a deep red in shame, she cleared her throat. "Oh yeah, Auror Shacklebolt," she corrected herself. "Your approval letter and the Veritaserum dosage." She passed the clear vial along. "They also requested a pensive memory of the administration and the interrogation that follows." Shacklebolt nodded, a normal procedure so far, he knew those things already.

"And a witness, I presume?" hence the two-way mirror charm installed by Warren.

"Yup!" she flopped down on a chair near the men. "That's why they sent me."

"Nymphadora," Warren tipped a head in greeting and Tonks' mouth curled in revulsion.

"Warren."

His eyes narrowed, raking across her flaming hair color and the haphazard state of her robes. "Still trying to fit into adulthood, I see."

The young woman rolled her eyes. "Still failing at normal social interactions I see."

"Touché."

Shacklebolt glared them down. "Let's hurry this up Tonks, the boy is getting tired."

She hummed with a frown. "Where are we keeping him for the night?" the men turned to look at her in confusion. "One of the holding cells?"

"No," at least, Kingsley didn't think so. "He's an underage child, of course, we're not holding him in a cell, he's already wary as it is."

"Most abuse survivors are, as you know Tonks," Warren drawled. "Although I wouldn't expect a rookie like you to understand delicate complex cases such as this one."

Nymphadora looked as if she wanted to throttle the man with the depth of her glare. "Oh screw you Warren," she finally snapped and flipped her file open.

"Ladies," the third Auror growled, "keep it down."

"You've done something to the room," Harry said as soon as Kingsley stepped back in.

"I brought you more paper," said Shacklebolt who had been fully prepared for the boy's accusing tone of voice. Of course, he knew that the room had been saddled with an extra charm. Shacklebolt tenderly shifted the vial on the stack of paper and then sat down.

"Do you know how to make paper cranes Potter?"

Potter eyed him and then the vial in quick succession, and then leaned back against his seat with narrowed eyes.

"That's Veritaserum," he said, quite blankly. Just stating a fact.

"Don't worry about that now," the Auror promised and then pushed the stack across the desk.

He leaned across the desk, his head tilted to the side. "You know what they say about paper cranes, don't you?"

"A thousand grants you a wish," Harry automatically replied and then reached for the first paper, his eyes darkening as if he had just heard a morbid joke. "This is clearly less than a thousand,"

Kingsley shrugged.

"It's enough to get you started." He said. He grabbed the vial and then slid it across, next to the neat stack. "First, I need you to repeat your confession about the murders again under Vertiaserum. The questions will only be regarding the incident while you're under the influence, this is a ministry approved and I'm entitled to assure you that we are being recorded and then the memory will later be used in a pensive."

Harry, perhaps for the first time since sitting in that chair, hesitated. "Will it help my Dad?" he asked, biting his lip.

Kingsley was fully expecting the boy's question. "I believe it will." He said, honestly. Potter's confession would certainly lighten Snape's load. Not by much, but four murders were a start if any.

"I'll do it."

"Do you know what they say, about paper cranes Harry?" his father had asked, seemingly a lifetime ago. They were sitting cross-legged on Harry's bed, both occupied with a small paper in their hands. Harry refused to leave his bed, had been doing so for the past few months, ever since…the accident.

Harry was under the impression that if he never left his bed then his magic could do no harm. Severus didn't correct the misguided belief but didn't encourage it either. His son just had to accept and forget the incident on his own time, and since this wasn't hurting anyone, not even Harry, then Sev saw no harm in permitting it.

"They have sayings about Origami?" Harry asked quietly, meekly. It was heartbreaking, to watch a nine-year-old boy sound like an old weathered man who had been through hell.

"I heard someone saying it at the market today, a gossiping lady with a child on her tail," Severus shrugged.

"You eavesdropped on them?"

Severus ignored the salty tone. "A Japanese legend claims," he said. "That if you build a thousand paper cranes…then the old gods grant you a wish."  
Harry paused to stare at him, hesitantly. Severus ached to reach out and pat him on the shoulder, hug him and tell him that everything will be alright, that it didn't matter that those blasted children were dead, to snap him out of this haze already. He was a child, he shouldn't have been through something so horrific and then feel guilty about it. He shouldn't be bedridden and miserable.

But he couldn't, Harry hadn't allowed Severus any physical contact since he had exiled himself to his room. He even refused to get out of that blasted bed for meals, couldn't even stomach the idea of food for nearly two painful weeks.

Slow progress, Severus told himself. Small baby steps.

"A thousand paper cranes?" Harry repeated and then looked at the one in his hands.

Severus hummed, trying to act unimpressed. "Yes, apparently the price of eternal happiness is one thousand paper cranes and an old muggle lady away."

Harry shrugged. "Well, I guess I have the time." he dropped his eyes and turned back to his parchment.

They had all the time in the world for eternal happiness.

Right.


End file.
